





















Glass 

Book 














6 


German-American Jews 

BY 

HERMAN ELIASSOF 


Reprinted from Deutsch-Amerikanische Geschichtsblaet- 
ter •Jahrbuch der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Historischen 
Gesellschaft von Illinois — Jahrgang 1914 ( Vol. XIV) 




COPYRIGHT 1916 

GERMAN-AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
OF ILLINOIS * 








GERMAN-AMERICAN JEWS. 

By Herman Eliassof. 

The Jewish historians divide the general Jewish immigra¬ 
tion to the new world into three main streams which flowed 
during three distinct periods of American history. The first 
period of Jewish immigration is contemporaneous with the 
colonial epoch; when the Jewish immigration consisted almost 
entirely of Sephardic (Portuguese or Spanish) Jews, mostly 
Maranos (forced Christians), who fled from the Spanish and 
Portuguese inquisition to Holland, where they could openly 
practice their Jewish religion. Some of them also came directly 
from Spain and Portugal and others came later from England, 
where they settled when Manasseh Ben Israel, the Holland 
rabbi, gained from Oliver Cromwell the readmission of the 
Jews to England. 

The very first Jews who came to America were children, 
ranging in age from two years to ten. The Jews on being ex¬ 
iled from Spain sought a refuge in Portugal. But they were 
doomed to disappointment, for King John II treated them 
with extreme cruelty. Among his methods of converting them 
to Christianity the relentless separation of children from par¬ 
ents was a favorite one. These poor innocents—or as many of 
them as survived the trials of the trip under harsh captains and 
in the company of criminals, who were sent to the Portuguese 
colonial possessions to serve their terms—reached the St. 
Thomas Islands in 1493. 1 

The immigration of the German Jews belongs to the second 
period, covering the time of the Mexican war, the civil war and 
the years of the reconstruction of the south. 

It is known that some German Jews fought in the first war 

1 See “Outlines of Jewish History” by Lady Magnus, pp. 335-36. 

— 1 — 


for the independence of the colonies and that German Jews 
were among the martyrs of the inquisition in Mexico. A num¬ 
ber of German Jews are known to have come about that time 
to Pennsylvania and to have settled at Shafersville and Lan¬ 
caster. That these and similar notable exceptions have per¬ 
sistently been lost sight of is due to the circumstance that 
the scattered colonists naturally gravitated to the larger com¬ 
munities of Philadelphia and Richmond, to seek homes among 
their Sephardic brethren. Their German origin was forgotten, 
and, in some cases, they were absorbed by the Sephardic com¬ 
munities. 2 

The third and the latest period of Jewish immigration is 
known as the Russo-Polish immigration, which includes many 
Jews from Galicia and Roumania. This Jewish immigration 
developed its main strength during the latter part of the last 
century and its proportions are still conspicuous at the present 
time. 

Each group of Jewish immigration paved the way for the 
next one and wielded a deep influence upon its successor. The 
Sephardic Jews who encountered many obstacles on their ar¬ 
rival in this country succeeded in overcoming the prejudices 
manifested against the Jews by Stuyvesant, the governor of 
New Amsterdam. They settled first there and then in New¬ 
port, R. I., where they established synagogues, and as these 
communities were augmented by new comers, some other Jew¬ 
ish institutions were founded by them. The Sephardic Jews 
were looked upon as the aristocrats of the Jewish people. 
Some of them came to America with abundant means and en¬ 
gaged in the export trade on a large scale. They soon gained 
a good standing and were highly respected socially as well as 
commercially. 

In August 1790, President Washington visited Newport 
and on that occasion he was formally addressed in a letter 
written by Moses Seixas on behalf of the Jews of Newport. 
To this letter President Washington replied as follows: 

“Gentlemen:—While I have received with much satis- 

2 “Outlines of Jewish History” by Lady Magnus, pp. 335-36. 


— 2 — 


*IAI3 

S?77 


faction your address replete with expressions of esteem, 
I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall 
always retain a grateful rememberance of the cordial wel¬ 
come I experienced in my visit to Newport from all 
classes of citizens. 

“The reflections on the days of difficulty and danger, 
which are passed, is rendered the more sweet from the 
consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncom¬ 
mon prosperity and security. If we have the wisdom to 
make the best use of the advantage with which we are 
now favored, we cannot fail under the just administra¬ 
tion of a good government to become a great and happy 
people. 

“The citizens of the United States of America have 
the right to applaud themselves for having given to man¬ 
kind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy worthy of 
imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and im¬ 
munities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration 
is spoken of as if it were by the indulgence of one class 
of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their in¬ 
herent natural rights, for happily the government of the 
United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to per¬ 
secution no assistance, requires only that they who live 
under its protection should demean themselves as good 
citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. 

“It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my 
character not to avow that I am pleased with your favor¬ 
able opinion of my administration and fervent wishes of 
my felicity. May the children of the stock of Abraham, 
who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the 
good wil of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall 
sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree and there 
shall be none to make him afraid. May the Father of all 
mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths and 
make us all in our several vocations useful here and, in 
His own due time and way, everlastingly happy. 

G. Washington . 3 

3 See Jewish Encyclopedia—article “Newport.” 

— 3 — 


.2 3 


Two similar letters were written by President Washington, 
one to the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah and the third to 
the Hebrew Congregations in the cities of Philadelphia, New 
York, Richmond and Charleston, dated December 13, 1790. 
These letters are ample evidence that the American leaders 
fully recognized the economic and political value of the achieve¬ 
ments of the Sephardic Jews as citizens of the young republic. 

These conditions created by the Sephardic Jews no doubt 
made it easier for the German Jews to settle in this land in even 
greater number than their predecessors. The German Jews 
were not only valuable co-workers of the Sephardim in keeping 
up their standard of good and loyal citizenship, but they even 
excelled them in many other respects. They were better edu¬ 
cated and more liberal in tendency. The Sephardic Jews were 
too conservative and too narrow in their haughty and aloof 
spirit, and incapable of rapid development from within. Their 
work of unfolding the Jewish communal and institutional life 
was slow and inadequate. They established a few Jewish con¬ 
gregations and minor charitable organizations, but it remained 
for the German Jews to expand in swift progress, to develop 
and advance Jewish interests and to found many strong Jewish 
congregations, benevolent organizations and educational in¬ 
stitutions. By their enterprise in commerce and industry, by 
their liberality and progressive spirit, they became a valuable 
element of this country’s population, leaders in the striving 
of the American people for the attainment of a higher citizen¬ 
ship, by their initiative force and constructive ability they 
succeeded in building up the Jewish communal life, in raising 
up high ethical standards, in modernizing the synagogue, re¬ 
organizing Jewish charity and in systematizing Jewish educa¬ 
tion. The high standing of the American Jews of today is 
due mostly to the right living and liberal thinking of the Ger¬ 
man Jews who came here to find new homes and so readily 
adjusted themselves to the conditions of American life. The 
first German Jews who came here were almost all poor and 
their first occupation was peddling. They trudged along on the 
highways and byways of the new world with heavy packs of 


— 4 — 


merchandise on their backs. They passed from village to 
village, from farm house to farm house and came in close con¬ 
tact with the rural population, with the farmer and the small 
tradesman, the bone and sinew of the American commonwealth, 
and they were quickly imbued with the American spirit of self- 
help, of courage and of daring. They soon became American¬ 
ized. It did not take them long to rise and to take their place 
among the important merchants and manufacturers all over the 
land and they helped to build up economically the west and the 
middle west. The German-American Jews have made their 
mark in the history of the country of their adoption. The his¬ 
tory of the revolution, the Mexican and the civil wars, and 
later of the Spanish war, tells the story of the patriotism, the 
loyalty and the bravery of the German-American Jews. Thou¬ 
sands of them served in the civil war and in the war against 
Spain. 

The German-Jewish immigrants brought with them a highly 
developed double culture, a strong combination of Jewish ethics 
and German civil virtue. The first helped them to develop 
their religious life on the lines of the new thought. They were 
the first to start and bring to a successful issue the reformation 
of the synagogue in America, a movement which had its begin¬ 
ning in the radical changes wrought in the life of the Jews dur¬ 
ing the closing quarter of the eighteenth century. Education¬ 
ally, the works of Moses Mendelsohn furnished the impetus, 
and the writings of Kant and Lessing, Goethe and Schiller 
materially changed the outlook of the Jews in Germany. 4 The 
second inspired them to become useful American citizens and 
to devote their entire energy to aid in the building up of the 
free American institutions. While they strove to Americanize 
themselves they still remained true Jews and loyal to their Ger¬ 
man culture, they fostered the German language in their homes 
and in their synagogues. They clung tenaciously to their Jew¬ 
ish ideals and to that German honesty of purpose, love ol 
liberty, sturdiness and solidarity which has enabled all German- 

4 See Jewish Encyclopedia—article “Reform Judaism.” 


5 — 


Americans to be counted among the best, the most useful and 
most patriotic American citizens. 

The German-American Jews always enjoyed the benefit of 
having great and good religious congregational and communal 
leaders. Their spiritual leaders were such eminent German 
rabbis as Lilienthal, Adler, Einhorn, Merzbacher, Felsenthal, 
Hirsch, Kohler and others. These are names of Jewish ethical 
and religious teachers of great learning and of master minds, 
of broad views and lofty ideals, men who have proven their 
earnest love of God and their sincere love of humanity; men 
of shining example as American patriots and as advocates of 
equal rights to all. Dr. David Einhorn was born at Dispeck, 
Bavaria, November 10, 1809 and died in New York, November 
2, 1879. He was a leader in the Jewish reform movement in 
Europe and America. When the civil war broke out in 1861, 
he was the rabbi of Har Sinai Congregation of Baltimore. He 
denounced the defenders of slavery so unsparingly that to stay 
in Baltimore became dangerous in the extreme. The mob 
threatened his life and he fled on the night of April 22, 1861, 
guarded by friends, to Philadelphia, where he became rabbi of 
the congregation Keneseth Israel. In 1866 Einhorn became 
rabbi of the Adath Jeshurum Congregation in New York. 5 

Rabbi Liebman Adler was born at Lengsfeld, near Eisen¬ 
ach, Saxe-Weimar, January 9, 1812 and died in Chicago, Ill., 
January 29, 1892. In 1854 Adler emigrated to America and 
soon after his arrival was elected teacher and preacher of the 
Jewish congregation at Detroit. In 1861 he received a call 
from the Kehillath Anshe Maarabh (Congregation of the Men 
of the West), of Chicago, with which he remained connected 
until his death. Liebman Adler was a warm American patriot 
in the truest sense of the word. During the years of doubt 
and suspense, when the fate of the Union hung in the balance 
and the stoutest hearts foiled and faltered, he flashed rays of 
hope into the hearts of his fellow-citizens. He raised his voice 
against slavery and spoke most earnestly for the cause of Union 
and liberty. A pamphlet containing five of his patriotic 

5 See Jewish Encyclopedia—Vol. 5 p. 78. 


— 6 — 


speeches, delivered in the pulpit of K. A. M., was published in 
1866. The fact that he sent his oldest son, Dankmar Adler, 
who afterwards became a distinguished architect, to enlist in 
the Union army, is the strongest proof of the sincerity of his 
patriotic utterances. 10 

These biographical outlines of two German-American rab¬ 
bis will suffice to demonstrate the character of the spiritual 
leaders of the GermanAmerican Jews. 

The German-American Jews have wielded and are still 
wielding a deep influence upon the life of the later Jewish im¬ 
migrants who came from Russia, Galicia and Roumania. They 
do everything they possibly can for the speedy Americanization 
of their brethren arriving fro these countries. For this pur¬ 
pose they have established and maintain a number of institu¬ 
tions in which these immigrants are taught to become enlight¬ 
ened Americans. They have opened an industrial and removal 
office in New York, which has connections with the Jewish 
communities in all parts of the country, for the purpose of 
breaking up the congestion of the Jewish centers in the cities 
of the east and to distribute them in the smaller towns through¬ 
out the country, where they are more likely to find remunera¬ 
tive employment and can more easily adapt themselves to Am¬ 
erican standards of life. 

I deem it expedient to introduce here a few brief outlines 
of the general history of Jewish immigration into America. 
They will help to bring out more clearly the historical causes 
and effects of the phenominal success of the Gernian-Jewish 
immigrants and to give a complete picture of their life and 
achievements in the new world. 

Some historical facts seem to establish a certain connection 
between the history of the Jewish people and the history of 
the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Among 
the names which came down to us of the men who accom¬ 
panied Columbus on his first voyage are those of several Jews, 
the best known among them being Luis de Torres, who was 
taken along as an interpreter. Others of Jewish stock whose 

6 See “The Jews of Illinois” by Herman Eliassof, in The Reform 
Advocate, May 4, 1901, p. 296. 


— 7 — 


names were preserved are: Alfonso de Calle, Rodrigo Sanchez 
of Sigovia, the physician, Maestro Bernal, and the surgeon, 
Marco. 9 

It was a Jew, Rodrigo de Triana who caught the first 
glimpse of the new land and called the attention of others to 
it, and it was Luis de Torres, the interpreter, who was the first 
white man o tread on the Indian Guanahain (called afterwards 
San Salvador). There were many more Jews on the first ex¬ 
pedition of Columbus. In fact of the one hundred and twenty 
souls which composed it we may say safely that almost one- 
fourth was made up of the adherents of the ancient faith of 
Israel. 10 

The exact date when German Jews first came to America 
has not yet been fully established. Much has been written on 
this subject by Jews and non-Jews, and the statements of the 
different writers are conflicting to such an extent that it has 
been impossible to fix the time for the first immigration of 
German Jews to America. The Jewish Encyclopedia states: 
“The Napoleonic wars, the general misery which followed in 
Germany, the desire to avoid military conscription, the eager 
wish to partake of the advantages offered in the new country, 
all impelled a steady stream of German-Jewish immigration to 
the United States, beginning about 1830, reaching its height 
between 1848 and 1850, and continuing until 1870, when it 
ceased to be a considerable factor. This immigration was prin¬ 
cipally from south Germany, from the Rhine provinces, and 
more especially from Bavaria. The immigrants were mostly 
from small towns; rarely from the larger cities or from north 
Germany, which contained well organized Jewish commu¬ 
nities.” 11 

In 1901, Max J. Kohler, of New York, published an ar¬ 
ticle on this subject 12 in which he surveys the entire ground. 
He makes the following statements: 

9 See History of the Jews in America, by Peter Wiernick, pp. 12-14. 

10 See History of the Jews in America. 

11 See Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 1, p. 501. 

12 See Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, 
vol. 9, p. 87. 


— 8 — 


“It has been customary to date the arrival of German Jews 
in America from about the year 1848, and to refer to the 
earlier Jewish settlers as Sephardim (Spanish and Portuguese) 
and not Ashkenazim (German). Though it is undeniable that 
America was first settled by the Spanish and Portuguese who 
speaking roughly, preceded the Ashkenazim, we must be very 
cautious in drawing inferences unwarranted by facts, as to ex¬ 
clusive Sephardic settlements before the revolutionary war, 
based, for instance, on the adoption of the Sephardic ritual or 
the like—such arguments are disposed of by the testimony 
given by a witness in New York in the Uriah P. Levy will 
contest when the question was raised as to what institution 
was referred by Mr. Levy, when he left certain bequests to the 
Portuguese synagogue in New York. The witness explained 
that the term “Portuguese” referred only to the ritual, and 
those testified that the Shearith Israel Congregation, the pillar 
of the Sephardim in New York, was composed partly of non- 
Sephardic members. To mention but one of many cases, 
Alexander Zunz, whose name places him among the Ashkena¬ 
zim, was one of the principal officers of that congregation about 
the close of the revolutionary war. 

“On a former occasion I pointed out that there were some 
isolated German Jews among the earliest settlers of New York 
and that as early as 1712, in connection with the plan to erect 
a school-library and chapel in New York city, Rev. John 
Sharpe made the observation that New York contained ‘a 
synagogue of Jews, and many ingenious men of that nation 
from Poland, Hungary, Germany, etc. Subsequent to that 
date we find Jewish names in ever increasing frequency. An 
examination of the early records confirms the statement made 
by Isaac Harby in 1826, as regards that date ‘as to the descent 
of the Jews of the United States, they are principally German 
and English.’ 12 I doubt, however, whether this statement as to 
relative numbers, would be true to the period preceding 1800, 
though it is important to observe that the early isolated Ash¬ 
kenazic Jews were prominent far beyond their numbers in this 

12 North American Review, July 1826, p. 73. 


— 9 — 


earlier period, as witness the careers of such men as Haym 
Solomon, Jonas Phillips, the Gratzes, the Simons, Hyman 
Levy, the Harts, Sampson Simson, Isaac Moses, etc. Of the 
German Jews who came to America before the close of our 
revolutionary war, we may well say that they were above the 
average in intelligence and this accounts in a measure for 
their success. Setting aside certain religious sects which were 
transplanted en masse, there was no large stream of immigra¬ 
tion of any denomination from Germany to America in those 
days. No German colonies were established here, as the Ger¬ 
mans were not a sea people like Spain, Portugal, Holland and 
England. As regards these early German Jewish immigrants, 
who arrived here in very small numbers, they unquestionally 
joined the ranks of the Sephardic Jews for purposes of wor¬ 
ship, and were properly counted as members of Portuguese 
synagogues. Socially it is true, they remained pretty much 
aloof from each other. 

“These same characteristics were not exhibited in such de¬ 
gree by the next class of German-Jewish immigrants who came 
over here during and soon after the Napoleonic wars, and who 
were actuated by different motives and possessed different 
traits. In order to mark the difference between these distinct 
types, we may accept characterization of the Portuguese and 
German types, furnished us by competent authority. What 
James Picciotto, himself of Sephardic origin, says of these 
types in his valuable Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History , (p. 2) 
is equally true of our own land, as applied to the Portuguese, 
and these later German-Jewish immigrants. 

“The spectacle presented by the struggles of the first Ger- 
man-Jewish settlers in this country differs as widely from that 
offered by their Portuguese brethren as a Flemish interior by 
Cuyp—plain, homely, rough, and yet clearly displaying in the 
figures delineated some of the qualities that make up a nation’s 
greatness—differs from the representation by Rubens of an 
imposing municipal gathering at the Hague, adorned with a 
crowd of richly-attired personages.” 

Leon Huehner of New York, in an article “The Jews of 
— 10 — 


Georgia in Colonial Times,” 13 says that in 1733 there were two 
sets of Jewish settlers who came to Georgia—the Portuguese 
and the Germans; that in July 1733, forty Israelites arrived in 
Savannah and part of them were Germans. 

Dr. M. Kayserling, the distinguished Jewish historian, 
states in his article “A Memorial Sent by German Jews to the 
President of the Continental Congress : 14 

“When did the earliest immigration of German Jews into 
the free states of North America begin? This question, so im¬ 
portant for history, has to my knowledge not been investigated 
up to the present time. It must at all events have been earlier 
than is generally assumed. Hardly was the constitution of 
Pennsylvania of September 28, 1776, adopted, and the prin¬ 
ciple expressed in it: ‘nor can any man who acknowdeges the 
being of a God be justly deprived or abridged of any civil 
right as a citizen, on account of his religious sentiments, or 
peculiar mode of religious worship,’ made known in Germany 
than the thought occurred to certain Jews who were tired of 
the oppression which burdened them, to establish a new home 
in the free American states. A German Jew, whose name and 
domicile are not mentioned, forwarded, probably in behalf of 
a considerable number of coreligionists, a letter to the Presi¬ 
dent of the Continental Congress at the beginning of the eigh¬ 
ties of the last century, from which it is clearly seen that a 
number of German Jews had the intention of settling in Am¬ 
erica. ‘Many of us’—so we read at the close of this very 
noteworthy letter—‘have learned with much satisfaction, from 
the peace made by the mighty American states with England^ 
that wide tracts of land had been ceded to them which are as 
yet almost uninhabited. More than a century may elapse be¬ 
fore the inhabitants of the thirteen united provinces will so in¬ 
crease as to populate and cultivate even the land which is al¬ 
ready possessed by these provinces, in such a degree as a 
duchy in our country is populated and cultivated. Your re- 

13 See Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, 
vol. 10, p. 65. 

14 See Publications of American Jewish Historical Society, vol. 6, 
p. 5. 


— 11 


ligion cannot prohibit you from leaving these deserts to us for 
cultivation; besides, you have been for a long time tolerating 
Jews near you. Whether policy might forbid you that, I do 
not know. At all events you have the legislative power in your 
hands, and we seek no more than to be permitted to become 
subjects of these thirteen provinces, and would gladly con¬ 
tribute two-fold for their benefit if we can only obtain per¬ 
mission to establish colonies at our own cost and to engage in 
agriculture, commerce, arts and sciences. Do we not believe 
in the same God as the Quakers do? Can our admission be¬ 
come more dangerous and precarious than that of the Quakers ? 
Supposing that two thousand families of us would settle in a 
desert of America and convert it into a fertile land, will the 
old inhabitants of the province suffer by it ? Let the conditions 
be stated to us, gracious president, under which you will admit 
us; we will then consider whether we can accept and keep 
them.’ .... 

“Of this letter, which first appeared in the Deutsches 
Museum of June, 1783, a separate edition was published in 
1787 under the title, Schreiben eines deutschen Juden an den 
nord-amerikanischen Prasidenten 15 and in order to invest 
it with greater importance and to give it wider circulation it 
was ascribed to Moses Mendelssohn, who was already dead.” 

Max Kohler says in regard to this letter: 16 

“We have no evidence that this letter was ever forwarded, 
much less that Congress ever acted upon it, but it is probable 
that the conditions outlined in it directed German-Jewish mi¬ 
gration to Philadelphia soon after this date. Such immigra¬ 
tion was responsible for the founding in Philadelphia of the 
Congregation Rodeph Sholom, which has recently celebrated 
its centennial anniversary. 17 Probably the same current of im¬ 
migration had led to the founding of Jewish communities a 

15 Frankfort and Leipsic, 1787, (23 pages.) 

16 See Publications of the Am. Jewish Hist. Society, vol. 9, p. 94. 

17 Compare Morais, Jews of Philadelphia, p. 70 et. seq., and Krous- 
kopf, “Half a Century of Judaism in the United States,” Am. Jew. 
Annual, 1883. 


— 12 — 


little earlier in Lancaster and in other places in Pennsylvania 
and Maryland. 18 . . . . 

“The theory that this current of German-Jewish immigra¬ 
tion dates from 1848 is completely refuted by the frequent and 
explicit references to this immigration, both in Jewish and 
non-Jewish sources, published prior to 1848 as well as by the 
establishment in New York and elsewhere of numerous Ger¬ 
man-Jewish congregations prior to this year.” 

Israel Joseph Benjamin, a German-Jewish traveler, who 
published about 1862 a two volume work entitled Drei Jahre 
in Amerika , 1859-1862, throws considerable light on early Ger¬ 
man-Jewish settlements, and most of his statements on these 
points seem to be approximately correct. Besides making the 
customary investigations of the traveler and sightseer, he took 
pains to meet the best informed Jewish residents. He sug¬ 
gests that this second, or German-Jewish, immigration to Am¬ 
erica began about 1836, and increased year by year thereafter. 
He also points out that Bavaria contributed the largest quota 
of immigrants, because of her peculiarly harsh marriage laws 
and commercial restrictions. 

Peter Wiernick says in his “History of the Jews of Am¬ 
erica” (p. 135) : “The reaction in Western Europe after the 
fall of Napoleon in 1815 gave an impetus to emigration to 
America. This was especially true of Germany and more par¬ 
ticularly of the German Jews.” 

Lady Magnus in her “Outlines of Jewish History” (p. 354) 
says: “The German period may be said to date from the begin¬ 
ning of the 19th century. The tide of immigration grew 
steadily until it reached its high water mark in the years 1847, 
48 and 49.” 

It seems to me that only one logical deduction can be made 
from all these various statements and this is, that German Jews 
came here in small numbers already in colonial times; that this 
immigration increased slowly until 1815, after the Napoleonic 
wars, when it assumed greater proportions. It kept on in¬ 
is Compare article by Dr. J. H. Hollander in Publications II, p. 42, 
v. 117; also Biography of Joseph Simon I, 121, Markens’ Hebrews in 
America p. 78 et. seq. and Am. Jews Annual, 1893, p. 90. 

— 13 — 



creasing from year to year until it reached its climax in 1848, 
after the revolution in Europe. Up to 1881 several hundred 
thousand German-Jews had come to America. From that year 
on German-Jewish immigration dwindled down to insignificant 
numbers. Between 1881 and 1884 only 15,409 German Jews 
landed in America. 19 

The following are estimates of the Jewish population of the 
United States from the year 1818 to 1910: 20 


Year 

Authority 

Number 

1818... 

.. .Mordecai H. Noah. 

3.000 

1824... 


6.000 

1826... 

.. .Isaac C. Harby. 

6.000 

1840... 


... 15.000 

1848... 

...M. A. Berk. 

... 50.000 

1880... 

.. .Wm. B. Hackenburg. .. 

... 230.257 

1888... 

...Isaac Markerus. 

... 400.000 

1897... 

. . . David Sulzberger. 

... 937.800 

1905... 


.. .1,508.435 

1907... 

.. .Am. Jew. Year Book. .. 

...1,777.185 

1910... 


.. .2,043.762 


The total Jewish population of the United States in 1914 
is estimated to be close unto 2,500,000 of which the city of New 
York has over 1,000,000. The German Jews form about 
twenty per cent of this population. Up to 1848 the Portuguese 
Jews formed the majority of the Jewish population of the 
United States. They were eclipsed by the German Jews in 
1848 who were in the majority up to 1905 when the Russian 
Jews surpassed them in numbers; the latter now form the pre¬ 
dominating element of the Jewish population of the United 
States. Unlike the first group of Jewish immigrants, the 
Sephardim, who concentrated in a few cities of the east and 
the south, and unlike the third group, the Russian Jews, who 
formed congested centers in a few big cities of the country, 
the German Jews scattered to the farthest parts of the land, 
established themselves in many smaller towns and hamlets and 
10 See Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. VIII, p. 585. 

20 See American Jewish Year Book for 1913, p. 425. 

— 14 — 
























grew up with the country. What Louis Marshall said in April 
1905 of the American Jews, at the celebration in New York 
of the 250th anniversary of the Jews in the United States, can 
well be applied to the German-American Jews. Mr. Marshall 
then said : 21 “There is not a field in the entire range of com¬ 
merce and of professional life, which they and their descend¬ 
ants have not occupied and developed. Every branch of manu¬ 
facture has been stimulated and improved by them. They have 
penetrated into the depths of the mountains with their mines, 
and their products float on every sea. They have contributed 
to the building of cities in every state. Their offspring reflect 
honor on every school and every department of intellectual en¬ 
deavor. During the civil war they shed their blood for the 
preservation of the Union. Their loyalty has never been ques¬ 
tioned, and their pride in American institutions is immeasurable 
in its intensity, because those institutions are the only political 
ones that they could call their own, since the days of the dis¬ 
persion.” 

At this celebration Benjamin Tuska spoke on “The Social 
Conditions of the American Jews,” and among other things 
said the following: 

“In the early days, however, there were but few English 
and Polish, so that the Jewish community was essentially Ger¬ 
man, the few wealthy Spanish families being as has been said, 
a fairly negligible quantity. The airs of wealth, the snobbish¬ 
ness of its sympathizers, had no place in the German Jewish 
community. 

“In the Jewish community the men preponderated. The 
numerous bachelors boarded with the Jewish families that ex¬ 
isted there. 

“In the days before the rebellion the Jewish social centers 
were the synagogue and the chevra (Verein). There was 
really no social center outside the family. There were but two 
interests outside the family and when business was laid aside. 
Religion was one, charity the other. Religion pervaded all 
things. The charity of the chevra was co-operation. It was 

21 See The Menorah v. 38, p. 269. 

— 15 — 


the forerunner of the beneficial order of a later generation. 
The Jewish community was essentially German. After the re¬ 
turn of the gold hunters from California wealth became im¬ 
portant. Class distinctions arose and clubs took the place of 
the synogogue for social purposes.” 

A small social club was organized at Newport by Portu¬ 
guese and German Jews as early as 1761. It was limited to a 
membership of nine. The by-laws provided that the club 
should meet every Wednesday evening during the winter 
months. 25 

The Harmonie Club is the oldest and most fashionable Jew¬ 
ish social organization in New York. It has recently consum¬ 
mated arrangements for the purchase of an estate on the north 
shore of Long Island, located near the city, which will be al¬ 
tered into a country club. To secure this property the Har¬ 
monie Club has invested the sum of $400,000.00 in the venture. 

The Freundschaft society of New York was organized in 
1879. It was formed by German Jews to promote social inter¬ 
course and to further music and literature. The first president 
was August Schwartzschild. 

In the beginning of the eighties an annual ball was held in 
the Jewish community of New York under the auspices of the 
Hebrew Benevolent Society. But the founding of social clubs 
on a grand scale commenced later and was undertaken almost 
exclusively by German Jews. Today there is hardly a city of 
any importance in the United States where there is not one or 
more Jewish clubs. In cities like New York, Chicago, Phila¬ 
delphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, etc., the Jewish clubs are 
counted among the most magnificent and best managed institu¬ 
tions of their kind. Their memberships reach into the thou¬ 
sands and represent the best and most important elements of 
the respective Jewish communities. In almost every instance 
these clubs were established and are still maintained by Ger¬ 
man Jews. 

The first Jewish mutual benefit association in America, the 
Independent Order of B’nai B’rith (Sons of the Covenant), 

25 See “The Hebrews in America,” by Isaac Markens, p. 37. 

— 16 — 


was also established by German Jews. Julius Bien, of New 
York, who was president of this order for thirty-five years, 
published a history of the “B’nai B’rith” in the “Menorah,” 
a Jewish monthly magazine, edited for twelve years by Moritz 
Ellinger. In his introduction to this history Julius Bien made 
the following statements: 

“From the third decade of the present century (XIX) dates 
a large German-Jewish immigration to the United States. In¬ 
creased oppression and the enactment of laws restricting the 
Jews to certain occupations, excluding them from the more 
honorable vocations of life and closing to them all prospects 
and preferment to official career or scientific profession, caused 
a large number to leave their fatherland and seek new fields 
in a country, which, while offering refuge from tyranny and 
persecution, leaves every man free to develop his highest facul¬ 
ties with equal chance of recognition and reward. 

“At that period there existed in the city of New York sev¬ 
eral Jewish congregations, the oldest of which was the Portu¬ 
guese. A minority of it consisted of native born Israelites, the 
descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews, who were 
amongst the earliest Jewish settlers in this country; the rest, 
of emigrants from different countries, who soon after their 
arrival were desirous of joining a congregation, and gradually 
assimilated with them, adopting their social religious habits 
and customs. 

“The Portuguese Jews retained all the hauteur and exclu¬ 
siveness characteristic of their brethren all over the world; they 
formed at all times a sort of aristocracy among the Jews. In 
the cities where they established congregations they remained 
separated, a caste of their own. They rarely married outside 
of their circle, and the descendants of the Espinozas, Mendozas, 
Abarbanels and Ibn Ezras hardly recognized other Jews as 
their equals; they clung with great tenacity to the rituals, the 
forms and ceremonies as they were practiced in Spain and 
Portugal prior to the expulsion of their ancestors from those 
countries. 

“Then there was the B’ne Jeshurum Congregation, most of 
whose members were originally emigrants from England, 


— 17 — 


with a small sprinkling from other parts of Europe. There 
were also one or two Polish congregations, composed of Polish 
Jews, who followed the Polish Minhag, or ritual, and the Con¬ 
gregation Anshe Chesed, which had but recently been formed 
by natives of Holland, with whom were united a few Germans 
and others. Of charitable institutions, one only had any promi¬ 
nence, the well-known Hebrew Benevolent Society; a few other 
associations were of minor importance, and confined in their 
benefactions more or less to the congregations with which they 
were connected. 

“These represented at that time Judaism in New York. 

“In the cities of Philadelphia, Richmond, Charleston and 
New Orleans, a few synagogues were in existence, and none 
further west than Cincinnati.” 

“The continued great influx of emigration from Germany 
increased materially the number of Jews coming from that 
part of the world, and presently they outnumbered largely those 
of all other nationalities. A hard-working and frugal class, be¬ 
fore long they found themselves on the high road to prosperity. 
New congregations and societies were formed amongst them, 
and their moral progress would have been equal to their ma¬ 
terial had not a spirit of jealousy and intolerance begotten of 
provincial antipathies and prejudices prevented union and co¬ 
operation. Petty rivalries led to frequent brawls and, arrayed 
in hostile camps, their unhappy dissensions long prevented pro¬ 
gress of any sort, while objects of common good were defeated 
and overthrown. . . 

“Individuals were found here and there endeavoring to 
bring about an improvement, but their efforts were of little or 
no avail; the masses, influenced by perverse and ignorant lead¬ 
ers, persisted in their intestine quarrels and remained incorrig¬ 
ible. 

“Thus matters went on, until a few years later we find some 
of the younger generation, who had enjoyed advantages of bet¬ 
ter education, and had seen something more of life and of the 
world at large, and who had witnessed the progress made in 
Continental Europe toward reforms in consonance with the 
spirit of the age, taking active part and becoming a power in 
— 18 — 



the German congregations of New York. They exerted no 
small influence with their countrymen and the good results of 
their endeavors were felt by sister congregations. 

“It became a social necessity for a man of family to join 
a congregation. Even those who, by virtue of their occupation 
and long absence from the city, could not be in regular attend¬ 
ance, were yet drawn into its influence; it was no longer a mat¬ 
ter of choice, but social standing required that he should visit 
a synagogue. No inconsiderable number of Jews were in those 
days mechanics and artisans, others followed mercantile pur¬ 
suits, while a large number, and especially the younger and but 
recently arrived emigrants, started their career by peddling in 
the rural districts. 

“Twice a year these returned to the city for the purpose 
of settling their accounts and replenishing their stocks, and as 
this happened, or was made purposely to happen, during the 
spring and fall holidays, they availed themselves of the oppor¬ 
tunity of joining their brethren in divine worship. 

“The great Hebrew festivals which thus brought to the city 
the wandering merchant were the occasion likewise of bring¬ 
ing the young people of both sexes together in social gather¬ 
ings, which frequently led to matrimonial alliances. 

“In the meantime the few men of better training and edu¬ 
cation drew closer together and found encouragement in each 
others society; in this circle the conversation often turned upon 
the means of improving the moral and intellectual condition of 
their brethren who stood so much in need of it. How to effect 
a closer alliance amongst the various congregations and socie¬ 
ties, how to lift up the individual man and make him feel his 
responsibility, and thus surround the cause of Judaism with 
greater dignity, and to make it more honored and respected by 
their fellow citizens of other faiths—these ideas occupied their 
thoughts and became the object of their endeavors. Their ef¬ 
forts, however, met with no immediate success. . . 

“Influences and forces of greater strength were demanded 
to suppress passions so vehement, to eradicate prejudices so 
deeply rooted, to unite discordant elements and to bring order 
out of chaos. Influences outside of the narrow walls of syna- 


— 19 — 


gogues, forces that would forge the incoherent mass, divided 
and subdivided, and from these discordant elements evoke har¬ 
mony and concord for the true welfare of all and the honor of 
Judaism. 

“To find ways and means for the accomplishment of those 
noble objects, to unite those who in reality differed only as to 
forms, but were one in the essential tenets of their faith, whose 
antagonisms were not as to principles, but as to the observance 
of customs and ceremonies and habits born of persecution and 
despotism and the whole train of bitter and relentless cruelty 
which cur ancestors had endured in their unalterable and un¬ 
shaken adherence to truth, but which time and revolution had 
changed, and civilization and modern thought were changing, 
and would remedy still more; these were the differences, these 
the antagonisms which needed to be melted and reconciled, and 
to accomplish this another and widely different but equally 
potent organization was necessary. Out of these bewildering 
labyrinths, into the broad, open highway of true brotherly love 
and harmony, a pathway must be found, a road made direct 
and true; a society formed which, cutting the gordian knot of 
prejudice born of localism and blind and degrading bigotry, 
should lift and elevate the masses to a higher plane, and lead 
them to a clearer realization of the sublime truths of Juda¬ 
ism. . . . 

“Such a society eliminating geographical lines and bringing 
together upon a common platform German and Pole, Hungar¬ 
ian and Hollander, Englishman and Alsatian; extirpating the 
narrow prejudices and superstitions of sections and provinces; 
inculcating lessons of discipline and toleration of mutual for¬ 
bearance and respect, of brotherly love and harmony, could not 
fail, it was thought of producing a complete and radical change 
in the manners, habits, thoughts and actions of its adherents.” 

And such a society was instituted on the 13th day of Octo¬ 
ber, 1843, under the name of “Independent Order B’nai B’rith,” 
in the city of New York, by the following German-American 
Jews: Henry Tones, William Renau, Isaac Rosenberg, Isaac 
Dittenhoefer, Michael Schwab, R. M. Rodacher, Henry Kling, 

— 20 — 


Valentine Koon, Samuel Schaefer, Jonas Hecht, H. Heineman 
and M. Anspacher. 

The name of the order was adopted upon the suggestion of 
Dr. L. Merzbacher, who became a member at an early stage 
and often spoke publicly in behalf of the order. To the genius 
of this eminent German-Jewish preacher and scholar must also 
be ascribed in a large degree, the intellectual and educational 
development, which gradually manifested itself in an encourag¬ 
ing degree. 

At a meeting held on the 21st of October, a constitution and 
by-laws were submitted and adopted, together with a “ritual” 
for initiation and instruction of candidates. For a motto were 
adopted the words: “Wohlthatigkeit, Bruderliebe und Ein- 
tracht” (Benevolence, Brotherly Love and Harmony). 

The preamble to the constitution of the Independent Order 
B’nai B’rith reads as follows: 

“The Independent Order of B’nai B'rith has taken upon it¬ 
self the mission of uniting Israelites in the work of promoting 
their highest interests and those of humanity; of developing 
and elevating the mental and moral character of the people 
of our faith; of inculcating the purest principles of philan¬ 
thropy, honor and patriotism; of supporting science and art; 
alleviating the wants of the poor and needy; visiting and at¬ 
tending the sick; coming to the rescue of victims of persecu¬ 
tion ; providing for, protecting and assisting the widow and or¬ 
phan on the broadest principles of humanity.” 

The first Lodge of the Order, New York Lodge No. 1, was 
instituted on the 12th day of November, 1843. 

In the history of the German-American Jews too much 
space cannot be devoted to the Order B’nai B’rith for the rea¬ 
son that its foundation was the grandest achievement in the 
history of American Jewry. The twelve German Jews who 
established this order have done more for the development of 
a higher standard of Jewish life, than any other Jewish organ¬ 
ization. They have conferred an inestimable blessing not only 
upon all the Jews of America but also upon the Jews of the 
whole world. The Order B’nai B’rith pointed out the way of 
Jewish solidarity, of union and harmony; it wielded a benign 

— 21 — 


influence upon the inner life of the Jewish community and 
fostered education and enlightment among the Jewish masses; 
it helped to systematize Jewish charity; it roused a higher spirit 
of patriotism, a loftier love of liberty and a stronger sentiment 
of the brotherhood of man in the Jewish heart. It is still doing 
this good work with greater force and enhanced energy in 
America, Europe, Asia and Africa. According to the last re¬ 
port of the executive committee of the Constitution Grand 
Lodge (1912-1913) the Order at the close of the year 1912 had 
seven districts in America, one in Germany, one in Austria, one 
in Roumania, one in the orient and lodges in Switzerland, Eng¬ 
land and Denmark which are under the jurisdiction of the 
executive committee. On December 31st, 1912, the total mem¬ 
bership of the Order was 37,558, the total amount of expendi¬ 
tures during that year for charitable purposes was $420,674.12, 
and the total resources of all the lodges combined represented 
the sum of $2,913,702.92. 

In 1876, the year of the centennial celebration of the Ameri¬ 
can republic, the Order B’nai B’rith placed a beautiful statue 
representing religious liberty in Fairmount park. Hon. Simon 
Wolf of Washington, D. C., was president of the convention 
held in 1874 when the resolution to erect this statue was 
adopted and it is mainly due to his energetic activity that the 
deed was accomplished. 

The seat of the Constitution Grand Lodge, the highest 
tribunal of the order, always remained in America and nearly 
all its leaders were German-American Jews. At first it was 
strictly a mutual benefit society assuring one thousand dollars 
endowment to each member, but in later years the endowment 
feature was eliminated and the altruistic principle was made 
to predominate. No other Jewish fraternal organization has 
succeeded in accomplishing as much as the B’nai B’rith in com¬ 
munal or charitable work and in representing general Jewish 
interests. The order has established or helped to establish 
many charitable and educational institutions like the Home for 
Aged and Infirm at Yonkers, N. Y., the Maimonides Library 
in the city of New York, the Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia, 
the Jewish Orphan Asylum at Cleveland, Ohio, the National 
— 22 — 


Jewish Hospital for Consumptives in Denver, Colo., the 
Hebrew Orphans Home in Atlanta, Ga., and the Leo N. Levi 
Hospital at Hot Springs, Arkansas. 

The guiding spirit of the order was Julius Bien, who was 
its president in the years 1854-57 and 1868-1900. He was born 
September 27, 1826, in Hesse-Cassel, educated at Teachers’ 
Seminary and Academy of Fine Arts at Cassel, Staedel’s in¬ 
stitute, and the studio of Professor Moritz Oppenheim, Frank¬ 
fort on the Main. He came to America in 1849 and settled in 
New York, where he became the proprietor of one of the most 
complete and best known lithographic establishments in the 
world. He was president of the National Lithographers’ As¬ 
sociation, member of the Academy of Science, New York, and 
many other learned bodies. He was awarded medals at the 
centennial exposition, Philadelphia in 1867, at the Paris exposi¬ 
tion, in 1878, at the world’s exposition in Chicago, in 1893, 
and at the Paris exposition in 1900. He was the author of the 
following works: “American Locomotives and Railroads,” 
“Yosemite Book,” “Sun Pictures of the Rocky Mountains,” 
“Statistical Atlases of the United States,” “Geological Survey 
Maps of California, New Jersey, Michigan,” “U. S. Geological 
Survey,” “Coast and Geodetic Survey,” “Atlas of the Rebellion 
Record,” “Atlas of the States of New York, Pennsylvania, 
New Hampshire” and many state and city maps. Pie died in 
New York, December 12th, 1909. To the day of his death he 
was chancellor of the Order B’nai B’rith and had charge of 
affairs connected with lodges in foreign countries. 

Among the other leaders of the order were Moritz Ellinger 
and M. Thalmessinger. Moritz Ellinger was born October 17, 
1830 in Fuerth, Bavaria, came to America in 1854. He was 
educated at the Fuerth Orphan Asylum and studied for two 
years at the Wuerzburg Talmudical College. He was coroner 
of the city of New York for six years, and was appointed clerk 
in finance department. Was secretary of the Goethe Club, 
Palette Club and interpreter in the Surrogates Court of New 
York; corresponding secretary of the Medico-Legal Society, 
member of Society of American Authors and a fellow of the 
Academy of Sciences of New York, chairman of council of 
— 23 — 


the Congress of Tuberculosis, editor of “The Jewish Times/* 
the leading exponent of Reform Judaism in America, for nine 
years, editor of “The Menorah,** the best Jewish magazine in 
America, for twelve years, for ten years secretary of the execu¬ 
tive committee of the Order of B’nai B’rith. He instituted 
the first lodge of the order on German soil, and by his speeches 
in England, France and Germany he assisted in effecting the 
union of German, English and French Hebrews in co-operation 
for the relief of Russian co-religionists. He died in New York 
in 1907. 

M. Thalmessinger was a native of Wuertemberg and came 
to America in 1848. He first secured employment with a drug 
firm in Boston, and soon afterward was offered an engagement 
as chief of the financial department of a prominent New York 
firm. He then determined to engage in business on his own ac¬ 
count. He opened a book and stationery store in a small way 
and by his energy and perseverance it soon assumed large 
dimensions and became one of the best known concerns of the 
kind among merchants and bankers. In January, 1885, he was 
elected president of the Mechanics’ and Traders’ Bank. In this 
position Thalmessinger adopted the same methods of industry 
and energy which marked his mercantile career, and as a result 
the business of the bank has nearly quadrupled since his ad¬ 
vent. He has occupied numerous offices of honor and trust in 
banks and financial institutions. As honorary secretary of the 
executive committee of the Order B’nai B’rith, his services 
were greatly appreciated; especially conspicuous have been his 
services as one of the founders of the Maimonides Library and 
in the creation of the fund for building the Home for the Aged 
and Infirm at Yonkers. 26 

The first American Jewish publication society was founded 
by Rabbi Isaac Leeser (born in Neuenkirchen, Prussia, in 1806, 
came to this country in May 1824 and died in Philadelphia, 
February 1, 1868) in 1845. It published fourteen works be¬ 
tween that year and 1849; but went out of existence after its 
plates and books were destroyed by fire, in 1851. 27 

The second society of this kind in America “The Jewish 
Publication Society,” was established in New York in 1873, by 
— 24 — 


Leopold Bamberger, Benjamin I. Hart, Myer Stern and several 
others, mostly German-American Jews. It existed for two 
years. 

The reform movement among the American Jews started in 
1845 with the arrival of Dr. Lilienthal, born in Munich, Ba¬ 
varia, in 1815, who became Rabbi of Congregation Anshe 
Chesed in New York. He gave up the rabbinate in 1850 and 
established an educational institute, at the same time becoming 
one of the most active spirits in the “Verein der Lichtfreunde,” 
a society formed by German Jews in 1849 for the promotion 
of reform teachings. In 1855 he was elected rabbi of Congre¬ 
gation Ben Israel, of Cincinnati, O., where he remained until 
his death, April 5, 1882. 

His successor as a teacher of Reform Judaism was Rabbi 
Isaac M. Wise, born in Bohemia, 1819, and came to this coun¬ 
try in the summer of 1846. He became rabbi of Congregation 
Bet El of Albany, N. Y. In 1854 he was chosen rabbi of Con¬ 
gregation Bene Yeshurun in Cincinnati and held the position 
for the remaining sixtv-four years of his life. In 1854 he started 
the publication of the “American Israelite” and in 1855 “Die 
Deborah,” a German companion paper to the former. In both 
papers he vigorously advocated reform principles and through 
them he gained a vast influence in the life of the American 
Jews. His main supporters were the German-American Jews. 
He was a great organizer and mainly with the help of these 
Jews he was able to establish the Union of American Hebrew 
Congregations (1873), the Union Hebrew College (1875), 
located in Cincinnati, the first rabbinical seminary in America, 
of which he was the first president; and the Central Confer¬ 
ence of American Rabbis (1889). 

The present president of the Hebrew Union College is Dr. 
Kaufman Kohler (since 1903), a German rabbi, born in Fuerth 
in 1843, who came to this country in 1869. He was educated at 
Hassfort, Mayence, Altona, Frankfort on the Main, at the 
University of Munich and at Berlin. In 1869 Dr. Kohler was 
elected minister of the Congregation Beth-El, at Detroit, Mich. 

26 See “The Hebrews in America,” by Isaac Markens, p. 150. 

27 See “History of the Jews in America,” by Peter Wiemik, p. 295. 

— 25 — 


In 1871 he accepted a call from Congregation Sinai of Chicago, 
where he inaugurated a series of Sunday lectures in addition 
to the regular Saturday service. In 1879, on the retirement of 
his father-in-law, Rev. Dr. David Einhorn, he became his suc¬ 
cessor as rabbi of Temple Beth-El, New York, where he re¬ 
mained until 1903 when he was elected president of the Hebrew 
Union College. Dr. Kohler is a prolific writer in English as 
well as in German. In 1868 he published a thesis entitled “Der 
Segen” (Jacob’s Blessing), a contribution to Biblical criticism, 
which secured for him the degree of Ph. D., and created a 
sensation because of its radical tone. Among Dr. Kohler’s 
numerous writings are: “The Wandering Jew,” “The Song 
of the Songs,” “Backwards or Forwards,” several Sabbath- 
school text books and a work on Theology. From 1884 to 1885 
he was editor in chief of the “Sabbath Visitor” and in 1886 he 
published the “Jewish Reformer.” 

The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, an orthodox 
rabbinical college, located in New York, was established in 
1886. Among the supporters of this institution are also many 
German-American Jews. Jacob H. Schiff, although a Reform 
Jew, is one of its most liberal patrons. 

“The Jewish Publication Society of America,” which is the 
third, was organized in Philadelphia in 1888, and has reached 
a higher prominence than any of its predecessors. It too was 
called into life by German-American Jews. Morris Newburger 
(born in Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, 1834, and arrived in 
America in 1854) was its first president and held the office for 
fourteen years, until he was succeeded by the present incum¬ 
bent, Edwin Wolf, in 1902. The society has over twelve thou¬ 
sand members. It has published for distribution among its 
members and for sale to the general public over sixty books 
on a large variety of subjects and among them an English edi¬ 
tion of Graetz’s History of the Jews, in six volumes, English 
translations of Gustave Karpeles’ essay on Jewish Literature 
and of his Sketch of Jewish History. Some of its other pub¬ 
lications, like the works of Professor Solomon Schlechter, Is¬ 
rael Abrahams and Israel Zangwill are highly valuable. At 


— 26 — 


present twenty authors are engaged writing books for the 
society. 

Through the munificence of Jacob Schiff, the German- 
American Jewish banker and philanthropist of New York, who 
donated the sum of $100,000.00 to the society for a new trans¬ 
lation of the Bible, the publication society had the translation 
completed by a number of prominent Jewish rabbis and schol¬ 
ars and it will be issued in 1915. Mr. Schiff has recently made 
another donation of $50,000.00.to the publication society for a 
translation of the Jewish classics. 

The publication committee of the society is now arranging 
for the preparation and early publication of popular comment¬ 
aries to the Bible. 

The American Jewish Historical Society, whose objects are 
the collection and preservation of material bearing upon the 
history of the Jews in America, was organized in June 1892, 
with Oscar Straus as president and Dr. Cyrus Adler as sec¬ 
retary. It has thus far issued twenty-one annual volumes of 
its “Publications,” a valuable collection of historical papers. 
Leon Huehner, its curator, and Max J. Kohler, son of Rabbi 
K. Kohler, are two of the most important contributors of 
papers and monograms on various historical subjects to these 
publications. 

The biography of Oscar Straus, the great German-Ameri- 
can Jew, prominent statesman and patriot, will come later in 
this article among the leaders of American Jewry of today. 

Cyrus Adler is a son of Samuel Adler, a native of Ger¬ 
many. He was born on September 13, 1863, in Van Buren, 
Arkansas. He was educated in the Hebrew Education Soci¬ 
ety's school, public schools and Central High School, Phila¬ 
delphia, University of Pennsylvania and John Hopkins Uni¬ 
versity. In 1878 he received the degree of B. A., and in 1883 
again B. A. In 1886 the University of Pennsylvania awarded 
him the degree of M. A., and in 1887 at John Hopkins Uni¬ 
versity he received the degree of Ph. D. From 1887 to 1892 
he was Fellow, instructor and associate in Semitic languages 
in the John Hopkins University. He was vice-president of 
the Philosophical Society and Anthropological Society of 
— 27 — 


Washington; representative World’s Columbian Exposition to 
Turkey, Egypt, Tunis, Algeria and Morocco; representative of 
the United States Government to International Catalogue of 
Scientific Literature, London, and member of Executive Com¬ 
mittee of Catalogue; member of the American Philosophical 
Society, Washington Academy of Sciences, American Oriental 
Society, and many other learned bodies. He is librarian of the 
Smithsonian Institution, honorary curator of Historic Religions 
and custodian of Historic Archaeology of the United States 
National Museum. He edited some of the “American Jewish 
Year Books,” issued by the Jewish Publication Society of 
America; “The Voice of America on Kishineff;” and the so- 
called “Jefferson Bible.” He is the author, (with Allan Ram¬ 
say), of “Told in the Coffee House,” many papers on philo¬ 
logical, archaeological, and American Jewish historical sub¬ 
jects in the publications of the United States National Mu¬ 
seum, in the publications of various learned societies and in 
scientific periodicals, and was one of the editors of the Jewish 
Encyclopedia. 

The leading spirit of the society is the chairman of its pub¬ 
lication committee, Mayer Sulzberger, the eminent communal 
leader and Jewish bibliophile, who has been a judge of the 
Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia since 1895. Judge 
Sulzberger was born on June 22, 1843 at Heidelsheim, Grand 
Duchy of Baden, came to America at a very early age and was 
educated at Philadelphia, where he became a very successful 
lawyer. In 1868, after the death of Isaac Leeser, the editor 
and publisher of “The Occident,” he became the editor of’that 
periodical. Pie has contributed largely to the Hebrew and 
secular press and his services as lecturer have always been in 
demand. Judge Sulzberger possesses a magnificent and rare 
private library and is a leader in many Hebrew organizations. 

Leon Huehner was born on September 18, 1871, in Berlin 
and came to New York with his parents in 1876. Studied at 
the college city of New York and received the degrees of B. A. 
in 1890, M. A. and L. L. B. in 1893 in Columbia University. 
He is a lawyer by profession and the author of the following 
essays: “Francis Salvator, a Prominent Patriot of the Revo- 


— 28 — 


lutionary War/’ “The Jews of Georgia in Colonial Times,” 
“The Jews of New England prior to 1800,” ‘Gershon Mendez 
Seixas, the Patriot Jewish Minister of the American Revolu¬ 
tion” and a number of additional essays on the history of the 
Jews in America. 

Max J. Kohler is an attorney-at-law in the city of New 
York. He is a son of Rabbi K. Kohler, president of the 
Hebrew Union College at Cincinnati, Ohio, and a grandson of 
Rabbi David Einhorn, natives of Fuerth, Bavaria. He was 
born in Detroit, Michigan, on May 22, 1871 and was educated 
in public and private schools, studied in the College, City of 
New York and in the law and political science schools of the 
Columbia University. He received the degrees of B. S. in 
1890, M. A. in 1891 and M. S. and LL. B. in 1893. In the 
same year he was admitted to the bar. From 1894 to 1898 he 
was assistant United States District Attorney, New York, and 
from 1898 to 1899 special assistant United States District At¬ 
torney. From 1901 to 1903 he was recording secretary of the 
American Jewish Historical Society and since 1903 its corres¬ 
ponding secretary. He is an occasional lecturer before the 
Jewish Chautauqua Society, Judaeans and Young Men’s He¬ 
brew Association. In 1893 he edited Judge Daly’s work “Set¬ 
tlement of the Jews in North America,” and in 1899 “Methods 
of Review in Criminal Cases in the United States.” He is the 
author of chapter on Jews and Judaism in America for Halli- 
day and Gregory’s “The Church in America,” “Rebecca 
Franks, an American Jewish Belle of the Last Century.” 

The capital event in the history of Jewish learning in 
America was the publication of the Jewish Encyclopedia from 
1901 to 1906, projected by Dr. Isidor Singer and edited by a 
board of well known scholars. Among the editors of this 
monumental work were Cyrus Adler, Dr. Kaufman Kohler and 
Dr. Emil G. Hirsch. 

It is utterly impossible to encompass within the scope of 
one article all the phases of the life of the German-American 
Jews. A complete historical analysis of all the currents of 
their commercial social, religious and patriotic activities would 
fill several bulky volumes. The German-American Jews are 
— — 


not the vulgar caricatures in which the Jew is painted in the 
anti-Semitic press; they are far from being the narrow minded, 
uncultured egotists, always greedy for gold and incapable of 
higher aspirations, as the prejudiced and relentless traducers 
of the Jews delight in presenting them to the world. The few 
flashes of light which are here focused upon the life and char¬ 
acter of the German-American Jews reveal the truth that the 
Jew is as good a man as any and as useful a member of the 
commonwealth as any other citizen, when he is given the op¬ 
portunity to enjoy human rights. 

The few general items from the history of the German- 
American Jews which now follow aim to demonstrate the fact 
that they were not all hucksters of collar buttons and sus¬ 
penders. The states of the Union, the east, the west, and the 
south, tell the all absorbing story of their commercial acumen, 
financial ability, patriotic fervor, charitable propensity and civic 
loyalty. 

As all the states and cities of America cannot be treated in 
one article, I will take for illustration the city of New York for 
the east, New Orleans for the south and will then come to 
Illinois, representing the young west. 

NEW YORK. 

Prior to the revolution the New York Hebrews were al¬ 
ready successful and wealthy merchants. Hayman Levy 
owned most of the houses on Duke street, now Beaver street. 
His principal business was in furs, in which he traded largely 
with the Indians. A local historian claims that he not only 
was beloved by the red man but was “actually worshiped by 
them.” One of his advertisements in 1773 announces the fact 
that he “has on sale black and white wampum, the best north¬ 
ern beaver, old coast beaver, raccoons, dressed martin skins 
and deer leather, both Indian dressed and in the hair.” Two 
men who became eminent in the history of New York found 
employment with Hayman Levy when mere lads. One was 
John Jacob Astor, who was employed at a dollar a day in 1786, 
to beat furs and the other was Nicholas Law, the celebrated 

— 30 — 


merchant, who served as Mr. Levy’s clerk for some years and 
then embarked upon his mercantile career with one hogshead 
of rum purchased from his former employer, who encouraged 
and rendered him substantial assistance. 28 

The first Hebrew congregation in New York which, more¬ 
over, was the first in the country, is known as Shearith Israel 
(Remnant of Israel) and was organized in 1680. The mem¬ 
bers were nearly all Sephardic Jews, but two German Jews 
were very prominent among them between 1776 and 1783, one 
was Hayman Levy and the other Alexander Zunz, a Hessian 
officer who settled in New York. Hayman Levy succeeded 
Zunz as president of the congregation. A list of the residents 
of New York in 1799 whose residences were assessed at £2,000 
or over includes the names of Solomon Sampson, Alexander 
Zunz and Ephraim Hart. 29 In 1838 the Jewish population of 
New York was about 2,000. Leo Wolf was one of the three 
Jewish physicians and P. J. Joachimsen (born in Silesia, 
November 1817, arrived in New York 1831), one of the three 
lawyers who were then practicing in New York. 

Among the merchants during that period we find the names 
of L. and I. Moses, extensive cotton brokers, J. Hart, father 
of Henry Hart, president of the Third Avenue Railroad Com¬ 
pany, Morrison Haber & Co., who were among the first manu¬ 
facturers of clothing in New York, Tobias I. Tobias, a wine 
importer. 

The first German Jewish congregation was the Anshe 
Chesed, which was merged in 1874 with the congregation Adas 
Jeshurun (organized in 1868), and these two form the congre¬ 
gation Temple Beth-El, at Fifth avenue and 76th street. 30 

In 1843 fifteen German-American Jews formed a society, 
the object of which was expressed in the following words: “We 
can undertake no work more acceptable in the eyes of God and 
more advantageous for the spiritual welfare of our co-religion¬ 
ists, of our children and children’s children, in this world and 
the next, than by striving to introduce an improved form of 
divine service, and thus to influence the religious and moral 

28 See “The Hebrews in America,” by Isaac Markens, p. 14. 

28 History of the Jews in America, by Peter Wiernik, p. 105. 

— 31 — 


culture of the members of the Hebrew persuasion.” 31 In 1845 
their number had increased to thirty-three, who called them¬ 
selves Congregation Emanu-El. This congregation is the old¬ 
est and the wealthiest Jewish reform congregation in the United 
States; it now owns a large and magnificent temple on Fifth 
avenue, the handsomest synagogue in the country. The cost of 
the building with the site exceeded $650,000 and could not be 
replaced today for $1,000,000.00. The congregation owns the 
largest and most beautiful cemetery on the continent. Nearly 
all the rabbis who served in the pulpit of Temple Emanu-El 
came from Germany, their sermons were delivered in German 
and the prayers were read from German prayer-books, which 
was also the case for many years in all the Jewish reform con¬ 
gregations in all parts of this country. The first rabbi was 
Dr. L. Merzbacher, who was mentioned before, he died in 
New York in 1856. The second rabbi was Dr. Samuel Adler 
(born in Worms, in 1809; died in New York in 1891). Dr. 
Felix Adler (born in Alzey, 1851), the founder of the Society 
for Ethical Culture, is his second son. Dr. S. Adler was suc¬ 
ceeded by Dr. Gustav Gottheil (born in Peirne, Russian- 
Poland, in 1827; died in New York in 1903). Dr. Richard 
James Horatio Gottheil, professor of Semitic languages at 
Columbia University, is a son of Rabbi Gustav Gottheil. 

As early as 1792 the financial operations of the city of New 
York were in part controlled by Jews. In that year twenty- 
five brokers, in anticipation of the growth of the metropolis 
and foreseeing the necessity of some joint action for the con¬ 
duct of their business, entered into a written agreement for 
mutual protection. Among the Jews who signed this agree¬ 
ment were Bernhard Hess and Ephraim Hart. 

Among the members of the stock exchange from 1820 to 
1830 were Joseph L. Joseph, S. I. Joseph, of the firm of J. L. 
and S. I. Joseph & Co., agents of the Rothschilds, S. M. 
Schaefer and Simon Schaefer. Among the more prominent 
Jewish members of the stock exchange in 1888 were A. Wolf, 
of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., James Seligman, S. Neustadt, B. Main- 

30 See Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. IX, p. 271. 

31 The Hebrews in America, by Isaac Merkens, p. 27. 

— 32 — 


zer, Charles Minzesheimer, Leopold Cahn, E. L. Frank, Rich¬ 
ard Limburger, H. P. Goldschmidt, Simon Wormser, Isidor 
Wormser and Leo Speyer. 

The first of the eight Seligman brothers to reach this coun¬ 
try, was Joseph, the eldest, who came to the United States in 
1838. He found employment as cashier in the bank of Asa 
Packer, of Philadelphia, where he remained for several years. 
He sent for his brother Jesse, who secured employment in New 
York. Joseph had meanwhile removed to Greensburg, Ala¬ 
bama, where he had successfully carried on a clothing store. 
Returning to New York, he established himself in a similar 
business. Among the first to arrive in San Francisco, during 
the gold fever of 1848, was Jesse Seligman, who opened a 
store and conducted a thriving business. When the city was 
visited by a conflagration, every business house in the town 
was destroyed excepting his. The thriving business which fol¬ 
lowed contributed to his earnings, which, during his seven 
years’ sojourn in that city, reached considerable proportions. 
Returning to New York he formed a co-partnership with his 
brothers, Joseph, James and William, as wholesale clothiers 
and importers of dry goods, in which the other brothers, Leo¬ 
pold, Isaac, Abraham and Henry, were later interested. In 
this business they were engaged at the time of the breaking out 
of the Civil War in 1861, and, having met with great success, 
they embarked in the banking business. In a short while they 
opened branches in London, Paris, Frankfort, San Francisco 
and New Orleans. Mainly through their instrumentality the 
government was enabled, at the beginning of the war, to place 
large amounts .of bonds in the German market. They were 
subsequently appointed fiscal agents of the government in 
Europe and they were recognized as among the great bankers 
of the world. They ranked with the most public spirited citi¬ 
zens, were very enterprising and charitable, and identified with 
all great questions which enlisted the sympathy and support 
of the best people in the community. Joseph Seligman, the 
eldest brother, died at New Orleans, April 25, 1880 and Jesse 
Seligman, the second in age, died in California, in 1894. James 
Seligman, the last survivor of the original group of eight Sedg- 
— 33 — 


man brothers, constituting the firm of J. M. Seligman & Co., 
celebrated his 90th birthday on April 20th, 1914. He is the 
oldest member of the New York Stock Exchange. 

The bronze fountain to the children of the city by the late 
Alfred L. Seligman was recently dedicated in Morningside 
Park. 

The banking business is continued by their sons who follow 
in the footsteps of their fathers. 32 

Bernard J. Salomon was one of the founders of the old 
Hide and Leather Bank of Commerce and a pioneer in the 
wholesale leather business of New York city. He was born in 
Luneburg, sixty-eight years ago and came to this country when 
a boy. In 1866 he entered the leather business and was the 
founder of the firm of Salomon & Phillips of New York and 
several years ago acquired a controlling interest in the Arm¬ 
strong Leather Company of Peabody, Mass., of which he was 
president. 

Mr. Salomon enjoyed the distinction of having been the 
first merchant to introduce colored leather in the United States, 
having imported the first colored kid leather from St. Peters¬ 
burg more than thirty years ago. He was a prominent member 
of the Harmonie and Freundschaft clubs and well known for 
his interest in charitable and philanthropic enterprises. He 
died in February 1914. 

There was hardly a public movement in commercial matters 
or along financial lines, which made for the enhancement of 
the public credit, in which the German-American Jews of New 
York were not prominent. New York, the great metropolis 
and influential commercial and financial center offered many 
golden opportunities to the enterprising spirit and the German- 
American Jews understood it fully, they grasped the excep¬ 
tional chances and knew how to make the best use of them. 
Only a few of them can be named here, but these few will fully 
suffice to show the indomitable spirit of thrift, energy and en¬ 
terprise which dwelt in these Jews, who dared to undertake 
great business ventures, who worked and struggled indefatig- 
ably and planned incessantly and accumulated vast fortunes 

32 See “The Hebrews in America,” by Isaac Markens, pp. 141, 142. 

— 34 — 


not only for their own use but also for the welfare and benefit 
of their fellow men. The proudest title of distinction that the 
German Jews of America have achieved lies in the fact that 
they have sacredly observed and strictly performed the condi¬ 
tion imposed upon them over 250 years ago in the charter 
of liberties of the New York settlers in seeing to it that the 
poor among them should not become a burden to the com¬ 
munity, but should be supported by their own people. The 
German Jews of America have certainly done their full duty 
in this respect. The German Jews of New York especially 
have covered themselves with glory by their boundless charities 
and munificent deeds of benevolence and by establishing in¬ 
stitutions and organizations like the United Hebrew Charities, 
the Home for the Aged and Infirm Hebrews, the Mount Sinai 
Hospital, the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum, the Young 
Men’s Hebrew Association, the Montefiore Home for Chronic 
Invalids, the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society, the Hebrew 
Technical Institute, the Aguilar Free Library and many others. 
While not all of these were started by German-American Jews, 
they all owe the great extent of their present activity almost 
entirely to the liberality of these Jews of New York. The 
Jews of New York expend annually not less than $3,000,000.00 
in strictly Hebrew charities and half as much in general char¬ 
ities, making a total outlay of nearly $5,000,000.00 per annum. 
Names like Altman, Lewinsohn, Loeb, Seligman, Schiff and 
Straus shine as stars of the first magnitude in the firmament 
of Jewish charity in New York. 

Within the last forty years the American Jews have brought 
the clothing trade to vast proportions. The growth of this 
business has been most remarkable and the entire trade is 
almost exclusively in the hands of the Jews. The New York 
Hebrew firms alone transact a business of over $100,000,000.00 
annually. The leading manufacturers of clothing in the city 
of New York are mostly German-American Jews, such as 
Alfred Benjamin, Washington Co., J. Friedman & Co., Frankel 
Brothers, Stein Bloch & Co. The German-American Jews of 
New York also have their share in the manufacturing of cloaks, 
the annual production of which by the Jews amounts to more 


— 35 — 


than $25,000,000.00. The same is the case with the manu¬ 
facture of shirts and undergarments, which is also in the con¬ 
trol of the Jews. All these Jewish firms employ many thou¬ 
sands of men and women. 

It is estimated that the Jewish capital engaged in the im¬ 
portation, manufacture and jobbing of diamonds, watches and 
jewelry will not fall short of $50,000,000.00. The leading New 
York firms in this trade are mostly German-American Jews. 

The German-American Jews of New York are also among 
the most prominent Jewish butchers, manufacturers of hats 
and caps, hide and leather, furs, laces and embroideries, arti¬ 
ficial flowers and feathers. They are extensively represented 
on the New York Cotton Exchange, in the wine and liquor 
trade and among the greatest holders of real estate. The most 
extensive pottery and glassware establishment in this country 
and probably in the world is that of L. Straus & Sons, of New 
York. This firm was founded by Lazarus Straus, father of 
the three famous sons, Isidor, Nathan and Oscar S., who came 
to America with his family from Rhenish Bavaria in 1854 
and settled in Talbotton, Ga. He moved to New York at the 
close of the Civil War and opened a small wholesale crockery 
establishment in Chamber street. He achieved great success. 
The firm now carries a stock of several million dollars and has 
factories and offices at London, Paris, Limoges, Carlsbad, 
Rudolphstadt, Stein-Schoenau and other cities. On January 
1, 1888, Isidor and Nathan Straus associated themselves with 
the firm of R. H. Macy & Co., one of the largest retail dry 
goods and fancy goods houses in America. This alliance, how¬ 
ever, in no wise changed their relationship with the house of 
L. Straus & Sons. 

Isidor Straus as born at Ottenberg, on February 6, 1845. 
He was educated in Collingsworth Institute, Talbotten, Ga., 
and prepared to enter the military academy at West Point. He 
was prevented from entering the Confederate army when six¬ 
teen years old by the lack of arms in Georgia, went to Eng¬ 
land for an importing company, organized to build ships for 
blockade running purposes in 1863. He removed to New York 
in 1865. In 1892 he became a partner in the Brooklyn dry 
— 36 — 


goods firm of Abraham and Straus. He was consulted by the 
Democratic leaders in the campaign of 1892, which resulted in 
the election of President Grover Cleveland. In 1893 he went 
to Washington to urge the president to avert a panic by taking 
steps to repeal the Sherman Act and in the same afternoon of 
the day on which Straus had his audience the president issued 
the proclamation convening Congress in special session, which 
resolved its appeal. He was a member of the Fifty-third Con¬ 
gress and declined re-election. He supported the Committee 
on Ways and Means which was considering the Tariff Bill. He 
was a member of the Educational Alliance, vice-president of 
the Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Board of Trade, 
vice-president of the J. Hood Wright Memorial Hospital, all 
of New York, director of several banks and financial institu¬ 
tions and connected with a number of institutions of science, 
art, education and philanthropy. In 1912 Isidor Straus and his 
wife, Ida, perished in the sinking of the ill-fated steamer 
Titanic. The heroic death of Mrs. Straus at that time created 
a profound impression all over the world. Refusing to leave 
her husband, who begged her to save herself with the rest of 
the women, she clung to him and they went down together. 

Nathan Straus was born at Ottenberg, on January 31, 1848, 
and attended school at Talbotton, Ga. He married Lina 
Gutherz. In 1892 he became a partner in Abraham and Straus’ 
store of Brooklyn, N. Y. He was appointed park commis¬ 
sioner of New York, and in 1894 he was the Democratic nomi¬ 
nee for mayor, but he declined to run. In 1898 he was presi¬ 
dent of the Board of Health of the city of New York, which 
office he resigned after a few months’ service. He originated 
in 1890 and still maintains depots for the sale and distribution 
of coal in winter. He has presented sterilized milk plants to 
Philadelphia and St. Louis and is largely interested in chari¬ 
table undertakings. 33 

There were quite a number of German-American Jews 
of New York and their sons born in this country, as officers 
in the Federal army such as Lieutenant Leo Derdinger, 39th 
New York, Captain Henry R. Schwerin, 119th New York; 

33 See “American Jewish Year Book, 1904-1905, pp. 197, 198. 

— 37 — 


Lieutenants Levi Kuehne and Henry Lauterman of the 3rd 
Battery Artillery, New York, and there were some in the navy 
as well. 

Emanuel B. Hart was elected to Congress and served from 
1851 to 1853, after which he was made surveyor of the port 
of New York, and subsequently appointed an excise commis¬ 
sioner. 

Isaac Phillips was appointed general appraiser of the port 
of New York by President Pierce, which position he occupied 
for fifteen years. He also filled the grand master’s chair of 
New York Free Masons from 1849 to 1854. For ten years he 
was a public school commissioner and trustee and for thirty 
years one of the most active and influential members of the 
Chamber of Commerce of New York. 

Joseph Blumenthal, (born in Munich, Bavaria, December 1, 
1834, and came to this country in 1839), participated actively 
in the reform movement in 1870 and 1871 and was a member 
of the Committee of Seventy. He represented the Fifteenth 
District of New York City in the Assembly in 1873 and 1874. 
In 1887 he was elected to the Assembly from the Twenty-sec¬ 
ond District of New York City. 

Leo C. Dessar, a lawyer, born in Germany in 1847, was for 
seventeen years a prominent leader in New York politics. In 
1875 he was elected a member of the Assembly from the Seven¬ 
teenth District and served on the Judiciary Committee. He 
was active in securing the passage of the Elevated Railroad 
bills and before the expiration of his term was appointed a 
member of the famous Committee on Crime. In 1884 life was 
elected Civil Justice of the Eleventh District Court. During 
his long term of office not one of his decisions has been re¬ 
versed by a higher tribunal. 

Jacob Hess, born in Germany in 1847, came to New York 
in 1850 and has been prominent in municipal politics since 
1874, when he was elected a member of the New York As¬ 
sembly, serving one year. The following year he was elected 
Alderman-at-large. In 1876 he was appointed by Mayor Wick¬ 
ham an Inspector of Schools, and after serving two years and 
a half resigned to accept the appointment of Commissioner of 


— 38 — 


Charities and Correction tendered by Mayor Cooper. This 
office he occupied with credit for six years. At the expiration 
of his term of office he was appointed a Commissioner of Elec¬ 
trical Subway and became president of the Board. He has 
been prominently identified with the National Guard. 

Paul Moritz Warburg, who was recently appointed by 
President Wilson, one of the governors under the new banking 
law, was born at Hamburg, August 10, 1868. He was gradu¬ 
ated from the University of Hamburg in 1886. He studied 
German banking methods in his father’s bank, M. M. Warburg 
& Co., Hamburg, English banking methods in London, also 
French and oriental methods. He came to New York in 1902 
to become a partner in the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. 

Dr. Abraham Jacobi, born in Hortum, near Minden, West¬ 
phalia, on May 6, 1830, and educated at the Gymnasium of 
Minden and Universities of Greifswald, Goettingen and Bonn, 
arrived in New York n 1853, after his participation in the revo¬ 
lutionary movement in Germany in 1848. Carl Schurz was 
one of the group of Germans, among whom were many Jews, 
that left their native land during the revolutionary period of 
the middle of the last century, and came to the United States. 
The Jews who came here at that time from Germany were 
of an exceptionally high grade of intelligence, public spirited 
and enthusiastic communal workers. They have distinguished 
themselves in this country in many ways in the world of com¬ 
merce, in the professions, in political life and in public of¬ 
fice. They have reflected great credit upon the name of Ameri¬ 
can Israel and to them we owe, to a great extent, the chain 
of institutions that are the pride of the people. Dr. Abraham 
Jacobi was one of this group of German-Jewish immigrants 
and his name is highly honored not only in New York but 
throughout the whole country. For more than fifty years he 
has been professor of diseases of children at the University of 
New York. He was president of the New York Medical 
Society and holds membership in leading medical societies in 
Berlin and Wuerzburg and honorary memberships in societies 
in many American cities. His contributions to medical litera¬ 
ture are of the highest importance and he was awarded a gold 


— 39 


medal for distinguished services by the National Institute of 
Social Science. He was highly honored on the occasion of the 
eightieth anniversary of his birth in 1910, and was in the fol¬ 
lowing year elected president of the American Medical Asso¬ 
ciation. 

Professor Felix Adler graduated from the Columbia Uni¬ 
versity in 1870, and was then sent to Europe with a view of 
prepairing for the ministry. He entered Berlin and Heidel¬ 
berg Universities, where he obtained the degree of Ph. D. 
After his return to the United States he received the appoint¬ 
ment of Professor of Hebrew and Oriental literature at Cor¬ 
nell University and in 1876 he established the Society for 
Ethical Culture, of which he is now the lecturer. In 1877 he 
published a series of discourses delivered before the society 
under the name of “Creeds and Deeds.” He also published 
“The Moral Instruction of Children.” He is professor of poli¬ 
tical and social ethics in Columbia University, a member of the 
editorial board of the International Journal of Ethics. Presi¬ 
dent Roosevelt sent him for one year to lecture at the Univer¬ 
sity of Berlin as an international exchange professor, where 
he made an excellent impression. He has manifested a deep 
interest in the welfare of the workingmen, tenement house re¬ 
form and the kindergarten system. For many years he has 
been and still is a great factor in the practical charity work of 
the City of New York. 

The great city on the Hudson is the gate of the new world; 
it leads in everything. In Jewish life too it occupies a con¬ 
spicuous position. It has today the greatest Jewish community 
in the world. It has many good and wise Jewish leaders. The 
best and strongest of these are German-American Jews and 
they are also counted among the greatest leaders of American 
Israel. 


NEW OREEANS. 

The first Jewish settlers of the south were, like those of 
the east, nearly all Sephardic Jews. A few German Jews set¬ 
tled there in the early part of the last century, but there exists 
very little information about them. Among the names of 

— 40 — 


those who were interred in the first Jewish burial ground of 
New Orleans, up to 1834, are those of Emanuel Stern and his 
wife in 1828, M. Marx in 1829, Samuel Hart in 1832, M. 
Strauss in 1833 and August Luzenburg in 1834. Most of the 
earlier interments were natives of Germany and Holland. 34 E. 
Stern was a member of Congregation Shaaray-Chesed, the first 
Jewish congregation of New Orleans, in 1828. Alexander 
Hart was Major of the 5th Louisiana Regiment during the 
Civil War. In another Louisiana regiment was N. Kraus, who 
served as Lieutenant, and subsequently on detached service as 
Adjutant to General Miller in the Department of Florida. The 
first German newspaper in New Orleans was established in the 
year 1841, by Joseph Cohn, a native of Hamburg and was 
called “Der Deutsche Courier.” It was published under his 
name until 1846, when it was changed to the “Deutsche 
Zeitung.” 

Philip Bodenheimer was a native of Baden. Pie came to 
this country when a young man and engaged in business in St. 
Mary Parish, New Orleans, becoming a leading sugar planter 
and owner of the Crawford Plantation. He organized the 
Bodeheimer and Brother Sugar and Molasses Company, of 
which he was president. 

On April 1st, 1914, Solomon Marx, one of the most popu¬ 
lar Jewish citizens of New Orleans, celebrated his 80th birth¬ 
day. The Harugary Male Chorus gave a reception in his 
honor and presented him with a golden souvernir in the shape 
of a lyre and a large beer bumper with a suitable inscription. 
Pastor Aninius of the German-Protestant church spoke elo¬ 
quently of the liberal spirit and kindness of Mr. Marx. 

Rev. James K. Gutheim, born in Prussia in 1817, came to 
this country in 1845, served in the Jewish pulpit of three con¬ 
gregations in New Orleans. He died in 1886. Rabbi Gut- 
heim’s philanthropy, integrity and amiability had endeared him 
not only to the Jewish population but to all classes of citizens, 
and his death was the occasion of such manifestations of pro¬ 
found sorrow as are seldom witnessed, state and municipal 
authorities uniting, with persons of all ranks and creeds in 

34 See “The Hebrews in America,” by Isaac Markens, p. 90. 

— 41 — 


testifying their appreciation of the loss sustained by his re¬ 
moval, while the State Senate adjourned as a mark of respect 
on the day of his funeral. Dr. Gutheim was the author of 
numerous essays and addresses. He translated into English 
the fourth volume of Graetz’s “History of the Jews,” and con¬ 
tributed to the “Sabbath Visitor/ a metric translation of the 
psalms. He showed deep interest in all charitable and educa¬ 
tional affairs, and was at one time president of the New 
Orleans Board of Education. 35 

His successor was Rabbi Isaac E. Leucht, born in Darm¬ 
stadt on January 25, 1844, and came to this country in 1864 
and to New Orleans in 1868, where he remained until the day 
of his death, June 4, 1914. 

The Jewish Widows’ and Orphans’ Home was organized 
in 1855 and the German-American Jews of that city were the 
main founders of this institution. 

In 1870 Congregation Sinai was organized in New Orleans. 
The membership consists mostly of German-American Jews. 

Adolph Meyer, born October 19, 1842, was a student at 
the University of Virginia until 1862, during which year he 
entered the Confederate army and served until the close of the 
war on the staff of Brigadier-General John S. Williams, of 
Kentucky, holding finally the position of assistant adjutant 
general. At the close of the war he returned to Louisiana and 
has been engaged largely in. the culture of cotton and sugar. 
He has also been engaged in commercial and financial pursuits 
in the city of New Orleans. He was a member of Congress 
from the First District of Louisiana, colonel of the First Regi¬ 
ment of Louisiana State National Guard in 1879 and in 1881 
was appointed brigadier general to command the First Brigade, 
embracing all the uniformed corps of the state. He was elected 
to the Fifty-second, Fifty-third, Fifty-fourth, Fifty-fifth, 
Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congress and was re-elected to 
the Fifty-eighth Congress. 

New Orleans has now more than 10,000 Jewish inhabit¬ 
ants. The German-American Jews own some of the most im- 

34 This biographical sketch as well as a number of others were 
taken from “The Hebrews of America,” by Isaac Markens. 

— 42 — 


portant business establishments located in the heart of the 
business district. They carry on a large trade in clothing, dry 
goods, men’s furnishings, boots and shoes, furniture, and cigars 
and tobacco. They are prominent in the cotton and sugar 
trade and own considerable real estate. 

THE STATE OF ILLINOIS. 

Not quite a century has passed since a part of the North- 
west Territory was organized into the state of Illinois. It was 
in the year 1818, and during the first twenty-five years of its 
existence there were few Jews in this state. But they, too, 
were at last attracted by the new country and the new promise. 
They came from the east, the south and the north to join hands 
with the sturdy sons of the western prairies; they came to help 
and to hope, to plan and to work for development and pro¬ 
gress. The first Jews who came to Illinois were all natives of 
Germany, mostly of Bavaria. The first considerable number 
came to Cook County in 1843 and settled in Chicago. 316 

According to the statement of some of the oldest Jewish 
inhabitants, the first Jew who made Chicago his home was J. 
Gottlieb, who arrived in 1838. Very little is known about this 
first pioneer of the Chicago Jewish community. Prior to 1838 
there were no Jews in the state of Illinois, at least no records 
can be found of their presence in the state. In 1840 four more 
Jews arrived in Chicago, Isaac Ziegler, the brothers Benedict 
and Jacob Schubert and Philip Newburg. 

The first city directory of Chicago was published by Robert 
Fergus in 1839 and continued by this publisher for a number 
of years. The Chicago Historical Society possesses an incom¬ 
plete set of these old city directories. The volumes of 1840, 
1841 and 1842 are missing. The directory of 1839 contains 
no Jewish names. In the copy of 1843 the names of Isaac 
Ziegler and Benedict Schubert appear but J. Gottlieb’s name 
is not recorded at all. In a second edition of the Fergus 
directory of 1843, reprinted in 1895, I find the following: 

35 See Andreas History of Chicago, v. 1. 


— 43 — 


“Ziegler, Isaac, peddler, bd’s. Washington Hall (Died Oct. 
10, 1893, a. 85).” 

“Shubart (Scott) Benedict, merchant tailor, 183 Lake St. 
(Died April 1, 1854).” 

The name of Philip Newburg appears for the first time in 
the same directory for 1844. 

“P. Newburg, draper and tailor, 153 Lake St.” 

For many years Mr. Ziegler peddled in the city and vicinity. 
He married some years after his arrival and several of his 
children are still living in this city. Mr. Benedict Shubert 
was also unmarried when he came here, and he, too, was mar¬ 
ried a few years later. Not long after his death, his widow 
married a Mr. Fleishman. She was again left a widow. She 
died here in the year 1901 and one son of her first marriage, 
Aaron Schubert, and two children of her second marriage, a 
son and a daughter survived her. The son, M. S. Fleishman, 
is a well known wholesale jeweler in Chicago, whose place of 
business was for a number of years in the Masonic Temple. 
The widow Fleishman was one of the first few Jewish women 
who came here in the primitive days of the Jewish settlement. 

Mr. Benedict Schubert was a man of good qualities. He 
possessed business ability and by good management he pros¬ 
pered and was soon considered the leading merchant tailor in 
Chicago. It is said that he built the first brick house in this 
city. 

Mr. Philip Newburg did not stay long in the tailoring busi¬ 
ness. He entered the tobacco business and was the first Jew¬ 
ish tobacco dealer in the state of Illinois. Some years later he 
removed to Cincinnati, O. 

Among the earliest arrivals in Chicago were the following, 
who settled here between the years 1840 and 1848: H. Fuller, 
Jacob Fuller, Marx L. Mayer, Rosbach, Issac Engle, B. Stern, 
A. Frank, Marcus Peiser, Levi Rosenfeld, Jacob Rosenberg, 
Morris Einstein, the brothers Julius, Abraham and Moses 
Kohn, James Marks, the two brothers Benjamin, Henry 
Meyer, Mayer Klein, Sam Cole, M. M. Gerstly, the Rubel 
brothers, B. Brunneman, Martin Clayburg, A. Frank, Morris 
Kohn, B. Weigselbaum, M. Braunschield, M. Leopold, Louis 
— 44 — 


Leopold. Henry Leopold, Michael Greenebaum, Louis Mayer, 
Ben Schlossman and wife, Simon Schlossman, Joseph Schloss- 
man and wife, Levi Cline and wife, Hirsch Kohn, Mrs. Dilah 
Kohn and Miss Clara Kohn, her daughter. Mrs. Dilah Kohn 
was the mother of the six Kohn brothers of Chicago, Elias 
and Henry Greenebaum, the Ruebel family consisting of the 
father, four daughters and five sons, Gabriel, Abraham, Isaac, 
Ruben and Moses, Isaac Luckey and wife, Isaac Wolf and 
sisters, Henry Horner, Louis and Samuel Haas, Jacob Fried¬ 
man, Isaac, Louis and Simon Wormser, Greenebaum with his 
sons Leon, Abraham, Herman, Jacob and Moses, their three 
sisters and their cousins Leon Greenebaum and Abraham 
Becker. The last two went to California where they lost their 
lives in the big fire of 1851 at San Francisco, B. Barbe and 
family, F. Frankenthal. 

Chicago was then such an insignificant place that Mayer 
Klein did not think he would be able to earn a living here and 
removed to Troy Grove, in La Salle County, Illinois. He later 
moved back to Chicago. Mr. Klein married a sister of the 
Rubel brothers. 

The six Kohn brothers’ were born in Moenichsroth, Ba¬ 
varia. In Chicago they were in the dry goods business at No. 
85 Lake street, the Tremont House building. Morris Kohn, 
one of these brothers, related that he took a ride on the first 
boat which started to run from Chicago to Joliet in 1848, after 
the Illinois and Michigan Canal was completed. Drinking 
water had to be carried from the lake and was sold at 25 cents 
per barrel. Only a few blocks were supplied with water from 
a hydraulic mill, corner Lake street and Michigan avenue, 
through wooden pipes. The country roads were so bad that 
very few farmers were able to come to the city. The prices 
of products were small. Wheat sold at 37^2 cents per bushel 
and corn was worth 10 cents, half cash and half in store goods. 
It frequently happened that a farmer who brought in a load 
of farm produce from some distance did not have money 
enough after he sold his goods to pay his expenses to return 
home and he had to borrow money for that purpose. The Jew¬ 
ish merchants generally loaned the money to these farmers and 
— 46 — 


gained their confidence and their trade. Some old settlers state 
that about that time a Jewish farmer used to come into the 
city with vegetables which he raised on his farm near Chicago. 

Before Max L. Mayer, born in Abenheim near Worms, in 
1817, came to Chicago, he lived for one year in Joliet, Ill. He 
was the first Jew who peddled with a horse and wagon around 
Chicago and the first Jew to joint the Free Masons in Joliet. 

The brothers Benjamin, formerly known under the name 
of Bentleben, and a Mr. Vogel kept general stores in Grundy 
county of this state. They all moved to Chicago. Sarah, a 
daughter of this Mr. Vogel, married Nelson Morris, the packer, 
who became one of the richest men of Chicago. 

The first Jewish real estate dealer was H. Mayer. He 
bought of the government 160 acres in the town of Schaum¬ 
burg, Cook County, where he remained until he was advanced 
in years, when he removed to Chicago. His brotherin-law, M. 
Kling, who lived near him in Schaumburg, stayed there some 
years longer. Meyer sold his farm and invested all his money 
in Chicago real estate. 

The first Jewish importer of fancy goods was a man by 
the name of Abrahams. He imported his stock, especially al¬ 
bums, direct from Europe and was very prosperous in his 
undertakings. 

The first Jewish wholesale dry goods business was carried 
on by the firm of Rosenfeld and Rosenberg. 

The first Jewish printers to establish printing offices in 
Chicago were M. Hoffman and Max Stern. The latter worked 
for a number of years in the office of the Illinois Staatszeitung, 
established by Anton Hesing. In addition to his printing office 
Max Stern later carried on a stationery store, on Fifth ave¬ 
nue, for some years in partnership with a man named Gold¬ 
schmidt. Max Stern was a prominent member of the German 
Turn Verein and other German societies. 

V ith the year 1846 closes the early period of the history 
of the Jews of Illinois. Chicago was still the only city in the 
state where the Jews lived in numbers sufficient to be called a 
Jewish settlement. There were a few Jews in the state out¬ 
side of Chicago, but they were scattered in different towns 
— 46 — 


and isolated in various country villages. S. Friedheim lived 
at Pigeon Woods, west of Elgin, Ill., and a few others lived 
in Joliet, and Schaumburg. In the same year the Jews of Chi¬ 
cago formed the first Jewish organization under the name of 
“Jewis Burial Ground Society,” of which Isaac Wormser was 
president. This society purchased from the city one acre of 
ground for a cemetery for which they paid $46.00 and this 
was the first public act by which the Jews of Illinois demon¬ 
strated their existence in the state as a body corporate. This 
parcel of ground was located east of the former city limits, 
along the shore of Lake Michigan and now part of Lincoln 
Park. This society existed but a short time as an independent 
organization, for it became merged in the first Jewish congre¬ 
gation, which was formed soon after. 

On the 3rd day of November 1847 about twenty Jews of 
Chicago assembled in the dry goods store of Rosenfeld & 
Rosenberg, 155 Lake street, and formed a congregation under 
the name of “Kehillath Anshe Maariv” (Congregation of the 
Men of the West.) The Burial Society turned over their 
cemetery to this congregation and ceased to exist. On Novem¬ 
ber 4th, 1847, a constitution was adopted and signed by the 
following fourteen members: Abraham Kohn, Jacob Rosen¬ 
berg, Samuel Cole, Morris L. Leopold, Phillip Newburg, Bene¬ 
dict Schubert, Leon Greenebaum, Levi Rosenfeld, Jacob 
Fuller, M. Becker, Isaac Wormser, B. Stern, M. Braunschild, 
Judah Kohn. 

The following officers were elected: President, Morris L. 
Leopold; vice-president and treasurer, Abraham Kohn; sec¬ 
retary, Philip Newburg; trustees, Benedict Schubert, Levi 
Rosenfeld and Leon Greenebaum. All the officers and mem¬ 
bers of this first Jewish congregation in the Northwest were 
German Jews. The president was at the time of his election 
a young man of 26. years. He was born in Laubenheim, 
Wuertemberg, April 10, 1821, and came to America in 1839, 
being then in his 19th year. In 1845 he married Rose Good- 
heart of Cincinnati, Ohio, and in the same year he moved to 
Chicago. In 1851 he returned to Cincinnati where he remained 
until 1867. He then moved to New York where he died, Octo- 


— 47 — 


ber 22, 1889. He was a man of tact, good administrative abil¬ 
ity and he managed the affairs of the young congregation with 
wisdom and to the full satisfaction of the members. This was 
no light task, for the members of the congregation were not 
at all united in regard to the tendencies of the congregation. 
From the start Minhag Ashkenas, the ritual of the German 
Jews, was adopted, but it did not take long before demands 
were made for a more reformed ritual and more modern ser¬ 
vices for the synagogue. The dietary laws were still strictly 
adhered to by most of the members and they were in need of 
a schochet (slaughterer of fowl and cattle according to the 
Jewish ritual). The vice-president, Abraham Kohn, went to 
New York and there he made the acquaintance of Rev. Ignatz 
Kunreuter, whom he recommended to the Chicago congrega¬ 
tion. Rev. Kunreuther was elected its rabbi, schochet and 
reader on November 5, 1847, and remained with this congrega¬ 
tion for six years. He was ultra orthodox in his views, and 
although he was not fanatically intolerant, he resigned his posi¬ 
tion and retired to private life, when he noticed that the con¬ 
gregation was leaning towards liberal views of religion. He 
engaged later in the real estate and loan business in which he 
was quite successful. He died in Chicago June 27, 1884, 73 
years old. His widow died some years later and two married 
daughters survived him. 

The successor of Ignatz Kunreuther was Godfrey Sny- 
dacker who was engaged by the congregation as reader and 
teacher. Mr. Snydacker was born in Enger, Westphalia, Sep¬ 
tember 7, 1826, and came to Chicago in 1854, where two of his 
brothers, Moses and Louis soon followed him. He was a man 
of good education and progressive ideas and soon became a 
prominent citizen and was identified with the early growth of 
the city. In 1857 he was German Consul in Chicago. He went 
into' the grocery business with his brother Moses in which they 
were very successful. Later they entered the banking business 
and were considered quite wealthy. Godfrey Snydacker mar¬ 
ried Hannah, Frank by whom he had six children, Joseph, 
Clara, Emanuel, Arthur, Rose and Elsie. For a number of 
years he was president of the Sinai Congregation and an of- 
— 48 — 


ficer of the Hebrew Relief Association. He died April 12, 
1892, honored alike by Jew and Christian. 

Four more men must be mentioned here in connection with 
Congregation Anshe Maariv and these are: Jacob Rosenberg, 
Abraham Kohn, M. M. Gerstley and Rev. Liebman Adler. 

Jacob Rosenberg, one of the first Jewish pioneers of Chi¬ 
cago, was vice-president of this congregation for fifty years 
and was an able, devoted and faithful officer. He was born 
at Altenmuhr, Bavaria, March 25, 1819 and came to America 
in 1837. He was eighteen years old when he arrived in New 
York. For four years he peddled through New England and 
New York state, parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. 
He came to Chicago in 1841. Here he found Levi Rosenfeld 
and with him formed a co-partnership in the dry goods busi¬ 
ness under the firm name of Rosenfeld & Rosenberg. They 
were very successful and by 1845 they were recognized as 
among the most prosperous retail and wholesale dry goods 
merchants in the west. Mr. Rosenfeld had married a sister 
of Michael Reese who went to California and became a multi¬ 
millionaire and owner of much valuable real estate in the city 
of San Francisco. Another sister, Miss Hannah Reese, came 
to Chicago to visit Mrs. Rosenfeld, and in 1849 she became 
Mrs. Rosenberg. Theirs was the first Jewish wedding in 
Chicago. For ten years Jacob Rosenberg was a volunteer city 
fireman, member of Company 1, or the Fire King. In 1876 he 
was selected by the municipal reformers of that year to stand 
in the second ward for alderman. Pie was elected by a hand¬ 
some majority and served for two years with credit. He was 
auditor of the Chicago Industrial exposition for several con¬ 
secutive years. By the will of his brother-in-law, Michael 
Reese, $200,000.00 were given in trust to Mr. Rosenberg and 
Mrs. Rosenfeld, jointly, for benevolent purposes in Chicago. 
They determined to build and endow a Jewish hospital, to be 
called Michael Reese Hospital. This they accomplished and 
it is now very justly the pride of the Jewish community of 
Chicago. In 1888 Mr. Rosenberg donated to Congregation 
Anshe Maariv a tract of land in the town of Jefferson, con¬ 
sisting of twenty acres, for a burial ground. This burial 
— 49 — 


ground is now known as “Mount Maariv Cemetery,” in Dun¬ 
ning Station on the Northwestern railroad and is one of the 
most beautiful cities of the dead in Chicago. 

Mr. Rosenberg died March 31, 1900, leaving a fortune of 
nearly six million dollars. In his will he bequeathed $40,000.00 
to charity. The congregation reserved a large plat of ground 
in the center of Mount Maariv cemetery for the Rosenberg 
family. Here Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg, who died January 
16th, are resting side by side. 

Abraham Kohn was the third president of Congregation 
Anshe Maariv. He was born in 1819, in Moenichsroth, Ba¬ 
varia. He came to America with his brother Moses. For a 
time they lived in New York, where they were joined by a 
third brother, Judas, and the three brothers then peddled in 
the state of Massachusetts. The section of that state in which 
they peddled was mostly inhabited by Millerites, a religious 
sect founded by William Miller of Massachusetts, holding 
peculiar millenial views. About 1843 the millenium was ex¬ 
pected by as many as 50,000 believers in the Miller doctrines. 
Business suffered very much in that section, as the Millerites 
were preparing for the millenium and bought nothing. The 
three traveling merchants determined to go west. They bought 
a stock of dry goods and notions and went to Chicago. 

Abraham Kohn was a man of excellent qualities and soon 
became very popular in the young and growing city. He was 
a truly religious man endowed with a bright mind and pos¬ 
sessed great administrative ability, which he cheerfully devoted 
to the service of the congregation. He received a good edu¬ 
cation in his native land, was a diligent reader and quickly 
acquired the knowledge of the English language. He was 
truly public spirited and all this fitted him admirably to be a 
leader among men. The Chicago citizens recognized his super¬ 
ior abilities and elected him City Clerk in 1861, under Mayor 
John Wentworth. 

Mr. Kohn died in Chicago in March 1871, deeply mourned 
by the entire community. 

M. M. Gerstley, the eighth president of Congregation 
Anshe Maariv, was born in the village of Fellheim, Bavaria, 
— 50 — 


August 17, 1812. He received what was considered a 
good education, and came to America in 1839. After living for 
several years in Pennsylvania, chance led him to Chicago in 
1848 and he made his home in that city. He joined the con¬ 
gregation in 1849. In 1856 he was its secretary and for a 
number of years chairman of the school board. For thirty 
years, from 1861 to 1891, he held the office of president, and 
his strict business methods, his great tact, prudence and in¬ 
tegrity were of inestimable value to the congregation. He 
took a warm interest in charitable work and was for some 
years vice-president of the Hebrew Relief Association and was 
actively identified with the work of that organization until old 
age and failing health forced him to retire. At first he had a 
clothing store on Lake street and lived in the rear of the store 
with his young son Henry, but in later years he went into the 
shirt business in a store in the old Grand Pacific Hotel build¬ 
ing. He was a man with a rare mind, always kind and just 
and inspired every one who came near him with respect and 
confidence. After a long and useful life he died on April 29, 
1893. 

The man and the teacher who made the deepest impression 
upon the life of the Jewish comunity of Chicago, whose ex¬ 
emplary spiritual leadership will never be entirely forgotten 
through many generations, was undoubtedly the Rev. Liebman 
Adler. He was born on the 9th day of January, 1812, at the 
town of Lengsfeld, in the Grand Duchy Saxe-Weimar. His 
father, Judah Adler, was also a teacher. Until his thirteenth 
year he received instruction partly at his father’s school and 
partly at a preparatory school in the vicinity presided over by 
a clergyman. He also received Hebrew instruction from 
Rabbi Isaac Hess, then rabbi ato Lengsfeld. His later studies 
in Talmud and Rabbinica he continued under Rev. Kunreuther, 
the father of Ignatz Kunreuther, who was rabbi at Gelnhausen; 
afterwards at the Jewish high school in Frankfort-on-the-Main, 
under Rabbi Solomon Trier and Rabbi Aaron Fuld, and later 
in the teachers’ seminary at Weimar. After two years study 
here he graduated as teacher and was given charge of the Jew¬ 
ish congregational school of his native town, Lengsfeld. In 
— 51 — 


1849 this school was united with the public school at Lengs- 
feld and Adler was appointed head teacher of the amalgamated 
school. 

In the year 1854 he left his native country and emigrated 
to America. A few months after his arrival in this country 
he was elected preacher in the Jewish congregation of Detroit, 
Mich., where he remained until the spring of 1861. In that 
year he was called to Chicago by the congregation Anshe 
Maariv; here he preached and taught for more than twenty 
years and became a blessing to the whole community. His en¬ 
tire activity, all the rich treasures of his brilliant mind, his vast 
knowledge and his golden thoughts, he diverted to his con¬ 
gregation and to its school. He held the light of truth aloft 
and showed the leaders and members of his congregation, who 
became his warm admirers and faithful friends, the path of 
righteousness and uprightness. A whole generation grew up 
to manhood and womanhood under his guiding love and in¬ 
spiring instruction, and their hearts overflowed with affec¬ 
tion, gratitude and veneration for their wise and learned 
teacher until the name of Adler became a household word in 
the entire community. He possessed the gift of endurance and 
patience in a very high degree and was kind to everyone. His 
spirit overflowed with sparkling humor, yet he could be very 
earnest, and his words of wisdom never failed to make the 
deepest impression. 

Liebman Adler was a true American patriot. In the dark¬ 
est days of the Civil War he tried to encourage his fellow- 
citizens with words of hope. He raised his voice against 
shameful slavery and spoke most earnestly for the cause of 
union and liberty. A pamphlet containing five of his patriotic 
sermons, delivered in the pulpit of congregation Anshe Maariv, 
was published in Chicago in 1866 and these sermons fully evi¬ 
dence his great abhorrence of the institution of slavery and 
his ardent love of freedom. He gathered 182 of his inimitable 
German sermons and published them in 1887, in two volumes, 
which he called “Betrachtungen zur Belehrung und Erbauung.” 
In 1893 an English translation of these sermons was published 
by the Jewish Publication Society of Philadelphia under the 


— 52 — 


name of “Sabbath Hours.” The press in this country and in 
Europe paid a high tribute of praise to these “Betrachtungen.” 

On February 20, 1872, Rev. Adler was released by his con¬ 
gregation from preaching and in 1882 he was pensioned for the 
balance of his life. On the 29th of January, 1892, he died at 
the age of 80 years. 

The Hebrew Benevolent Society was organized in Chicago 
in 1851. It still owns a burial ground on Clark street near 
Graceland. The United Hebrew Relief Association, the first 
Jewish Charity organization, was established in 1859. Henry 
Greenebaum was the first president, Isaac Grensfelder the 
first treasurer and Edward S. Solomon the first secretary. In 
1861 Isaac Greensfelder was elected president; he served the 
sociey as a faithful officer for more than forty years. From a 
ball arranged for the benefit of the Hebrew Relief Association 
in 1863, $15,054.92 were realized and $34,000.00 were collected 
by a committee. The society bought a piece of ground for a 
hospital in the north division of the city in 1866. At a mass¬ 
meeting held on October 22, 1866, for the purpose of raising 
funds for the hospital, over $17,000.00 were subscribed and at 
a fair held in December, 1867 the sum of $11,500.00 was netted 
for the hospital. This hospital was destroyed by the great 
Chicago fire, in October, 1871. In 1879 Henry L. Frank and 
his brother, Joseph, trustees of a fund bequeathed to them by 
Michael Reese of San Francisco, Cal., offered the sum of 
$30,000.00 for a hospital building, on condition that it should 
be known as Michael Reese Hospital. Jacob Rosenberg and 
Henrietta Rosenfeld, likewise trustees of a fund left to them 
by the same Michael Reese, offered the sum of $50,000.00 as 
an endowment for the maintainance of the hospital to be named 
Michael Reese Hospital. The United Hebrew Relief Associa¬ 
tion accepted both offers. The lot of the first hospital was ex¬ 
changed for the lot on 29th street and Lake avenue, just east 
of Cottage Grove avenue, and on the 23rd of October, 1881, 
the Michael Reese Hospital was opened for the admission of 
patients. There are three other institutions connected with the 
hospital, a training school for nurses, established in 1890; the 

— 53 — 


Nelson Morris Institute of Medical Research and the Sarah 
Morris Hospital for children. Each of these institutions has a 
separate building of its own. The one for the training school 
for nurses was erected by the Jewish Aid Society and the other 
two buildings were built with money left by the benefactors 
whose names the institutions bear. Nelson Morris (born in the 
Black Forest, came to Chicago, 1854) died in Chicago in the 
year 1908, leaving a large fortune to his widow and to his chil¬ 
dren. In 1909, the widow, Sarah Morris, in memory of her 
husband, gave to the Michael Reese Hospital the sum of 
$250,000.00 for the purpose of establishing and maintaining 
an institution of medical and pathological research, to be 
known ts Nelson Morris Memorial Institute of Medical Re¬ 
search. This building was completed in 1912. Shortly after 
the munificent donation for a medical research institution, 
Sarah Morris died. In her will she left $300,000.00 for a hos¬ 
pital for children which her executors turned over to Michael 
Reese Hospital. This building, too, was finished in 1912. It 
is a monument to the liberality and generosity of the German- 
American Jews, who established this institution at great cost, 
who lavish vast sums in its support and conduct it on a non 
sectarian plan. 

In 1888 the name of the United Hebrew Relief Association 
was changed to United Hebrew Charities of Chicago and on 
October 31st, 1907, it was again changed to “Jewish Aid 
Society” under which it is known today. 

The “Associated Jewish Charities of Chicago” was estab¬ 
lished in 1900. It is a clearing house for the main Jewish 
charities of Chicago. It collects all the money subscribed by 
the Jews to the charities, and it distributes it among the differ¬ 
ent benevolent institutions. The beneficiaries of the Associated 
Jewish Charities are the Michael Reese Hospital, the Jewish 
Aid Society, the Home for Aged Jews, the Jewish Training 
School, the Chicago Home for Jewish Orphans, the Home for 
Jewish Friendless and Working Girls, the Bureau of Personal 
Service and the Helen Day Nursery. During the first year 
of the existence of the Associated Jewish Charities about 


— 54 — 


$140,000.00 was collected, in 1907 this amount was nearly 
doubled until now it reaches the sum of more than $300,000.00 
per annum. New institutions are constantly being added to 
its list of beneficiaries. 

Among the pioneer leaders in Jewish charity work in Chi¬ 
cago were Henry Greenebaum, Elias Greenebaum, his brother, 
Isaac Greensfelder, Abraham Hart, Nathan Eisendrath, God¬ 
frey Snyacker, Gerhard Foreman, Morris Einstein, Adolph 
Moses, Julius Rosenthal, Leopold Mayer, Philip Stein, Mrs. 
Marian Hart-Schmaltz, Mrs. Johanna Loeb and Mrs. Emanuel 
Mandel. 

Henry Greenebaum contributed more than any other Ger- 
man-American Jew to the development of the city of Chicago 
and to the interests of its Jewish community. For many years 
he was a conspicuous figure in the financial world of the west. 
He was born in Eppelsheim, Germany, June 18, 1833; his par¬ 
ents were Jacob and Sarah (Herz) Greenebaum. He received 
his primary education in the public schools of his native town 
and then took up the study of the classics at Alzey and Kaiser¬ 
slautern. He came to Chicago, October 25, 1848, where two 
elder brothers, Michael and Elias, had preceded him, and was 
employed as a hardware salesman in the store of W. F. Domi¬ 
nick. Two years later he was enegaged as clerk in the banking 
house of General R. K. Swift, where he remained for four 
years. At the end of this period he founded the German 
National Bank in partnership with his elder brother, Elias, 
who was also a clerk in Swift’s bank. Henry Greenebaum also 
founded and was president of the German Savings Bank. At 
the time of their highest prosperity the deposits of these two 
banks approximated five million dollars, which was quite a 
large aggregate in the earlier bank history of Chicago. It was 
in the height of these banks’ prosperity, in 1877, after the panic 
of 1873 had been weathered, that difficulties came and eventu¬ 
ally Henry Greenebaum turned over his fortune of $1,000,- 
000.00 to take care of his creditors and depositors. All were 
paid in full. Greenebaum was one of the promoters of the city 
library and was a life member of the Chicago Historical 
Society, the Chicago Atheneum, the Astronomical Society, the 
— 55 — 


82nd Illinois Volunteer Regiment of Veterans and of several 
kindred associations. He was a volunteer fireman in Chicago 
when the city had no regular fire department and served two 
terms as a member of the board of aldermen before the war. 
Greenebaum was the intimate friend of Lincoln, Logan and 
Douglas. He stumped the state for Stephen A. Douglas, 
was presidential elector on the Douglas ticket and when the 
civil war was started he equipped a regiment. He was an 
elector at large for General Grant in 1868. In 1871 he was 
the chairman of the peace celebration which followed the 
Franco-Prussian war and acted as chief marshal of the parade 
which was a part of the exercises. Greenebaum also repre¬ 
sented Cook County, in 1856, in the State Board of Equaliza¬ 
tion and was a member of the West Park Commission during 
the administration of Governor Palmer. He was one of the 
foremost platform orators in the city during his active political 
life. Greenebaum was one of the founders of the United He¬ 
brew Charities, of District No. 6 Independent Order B’nai 
B’rith, of which district he was the first president and of the 
Sinai, Zion and Isaiah congregations. As a patron of arts 
Greenebaum was always conspicuous. He was on friendly 
terms with many artists and musicians who always were sure 
of encouragement from him. Adelina Patti always visited his 
home when she came to this country, as did many of the great 
singers and actors. He organized the Beethoven Society in 
Chicago. Since 1882 up to a short time before his death 
Greenebaum was connected with the Equitable Life Insurance 
Company of New York, as a Chicago representative. He 
always took a great interest in Jewish. Before he was of age 
he was secretary of B’nai Sholom congregation, and when he 
withdrew in 1855 to join Congregation Anshe Maariv, B’nai 
Sholom elected him an honorary member. In 1857 he assisted 
in instituting Ramah Lodge No. 33, the oldest B’nai B’rith 
Lodge in the city. He was one of the founders of the Cleve¬ 
land Jewish Orphan Asylum. He was honorary member of 
Johannah Lodge, an organization of German-Jewish women 
devoted to charity and culture and for thirty years he officiated 
in Zion Temple as reader on the eve of the Day of Atonement. 

— 56 — 


He died in Chicago on February 2, 1914, 80 years old. The 
Jewish community of Chicago deeply mourns his loss and 
highly honors his memory as a useful citizen and as a faithful 
and energetic Jewish leader in charity and in liberal religion. 

Elias Greenebaum, the elder brother of the late Henry, was 
born at Eppelsheim, Grand Duchy of Hesse- Darmstadt, in 
June 1822. He was educated in Germany and came to the 
United States at the age of twenty-five (1847). His first em¬ 
ployment was as a clerk in a country store in the state of Ohio. 
A short time after he moved to Chicago and accepted a position 
as a clerk in the dry goods store of Francis Clarke, 168 Lake 
street. He subsequently entered the banking house of Richard 
K. Swift. On January 1st, 1855, he joined his brother Henry 
in the banking and brokerage business, where he remained 
until 1862. He then became a partner of his brother-in-law 
Gerhard Foreman, and they carried on business under the firm 
name of Greenebaum & Foreman until 1874 when the firm 
was dissolved. Mr. Greenebaum again joined his brother 
Henry and became a partner in the banking house of Henry 
Greenebaum & Co. In 1878, Mr. Elias Greenebaum started 
a loan brokerage business with his sons Moses E. and Henry 
E., thereby laying the foundation of the present well known 
Chicago banking house of Greenebaum Sons. 

Mr. Greenebaum is very favorably known in Chicago. His 
honored name stands for great experience in financial trans¬ 
actions, for positive probity and integrity. He was always a 
public spirited citizen, a man of broad, charitable sympathies 
and an intelligent worker for the welfare of the Chicago Jew¬ 
ish community. He is one of the founders of the Sinai Con¬ 
gregation and is still a member of the same. The members of 
the congregation have bestowed on him the highest honors 
within their gift. At different times he was director, treas¬ 
urer, vice-president and president. He was a member of the 
Hebrew Benevolent Society, the second oldest charity organiz¬ 
ation in the Jewish community of Chicago and was president 
of the same for ten years. 

Elias Greenebaum is now over ninety-two years of age and 
is still active and full of business energy. He is to be found 


— 57 — 


in the bank of Greenebaum Sons every day. He is still eager 
to serve his fellowmen. 

Isaac Greensfelder was 21 years old when he left Germany 
in 1848, the year of the revolutions in Europe. In Germany 
he had learned the trade of shoemaking and he chose the 
United States in which to work and build up a home. He was 
born at Lehrberg, Bavaria, in 1827 and received a public school 
education in his native town. In 1853 he came to Chicago 
where he succeeded far beyond his modest expectations. From 
the humble shoemaker’s bench he climbed up the ladder of suc¬ 
cess until he reached the top rung. He became the owner of 
a wholesale boot and shoe business which for many years was 
numbered among some of the strongest and most prosperous 
business houses of its line in the west, and he reached an envi¬ 
able standing in Chicago as a man and a merchant. Greens- 
felder was also a highly honored and respected member of the 
Chicago Jewish community, for he devoted almost his entire 
life to Jewish charity work. From the very first day of the 
organization of the Hebrew Relief Association he was one of 
its active workers and leaders. For thirty-one years he was 
president of this society, which is now known as the United 
Hebrew Charities. As president of this association he also 
had the Michael Reese Hospital under his official care and man¬ 
agement and even when he was already advanced in years he 
attended to his duties with great zeal and astonishing regular¬ 
ity. He was a charter member of Sinai Congregation and for 
many years one of its directors. He was also a director of 
the Jewish Orphans Home and a member of the Standard Club. 
Greensfelder remained faithful to the promptings of his chari¬ 
table heart to the very last moment of his life. After old age 
had rendered him weak and feeble and he was forced to retire 
from active work and to relinquish his office as president of the 
United Hebrew Charities, he used to pay a daily visit to 
Michael Reese Hospital. There he was stricken on one of his 
visits in 1913 and died in his 87th year. 

Abraham Hart was born at Eppelsheim, Germany, in 1831. 
In 1854 he came to America and settled in Chicago. He was 
— 58 — 


the founder of the wholesale men's furnishing house of Hart 
Brothers, which for many years occupied a prominent place 
in the wholesale business world of Chicago. His younger 
brother, Henry N., was associated in the business with him. 
Abe Hart, the name by which he was best known and most 
beloved by many people in and outside of Chicago, was a 
prominent figure in the Chicago Jewish community, for he was 
for many years the heart and soul of the most important move¬ 
ments which resultsd in the establishment of the best Jewish 
communal institutions. His enviable reputation as a father to 
orphans and as a friend of the needy went far beyond the limits 
of the state of Illinois. He was a life member of the Cleve¬ 
land Jewish Orphan Asylum; for eleven years he held the 
position of president and for twenty years he was a 
trustee of this institution, representing the Jews of Chicago. 
To the very last day of his life, even after he retired from his 
office, he took a warm interest in the welfare of the inmates of 
the Cleveland Orphan Asylum. The boys and girls of the 
asylum called him father and even after they graduated from 
the institution and went out into the world to work out their 
destinies, they always turned to him for his fatherly advice and 
kind encouragement. He was also a contributing member of 
the Jewish Orphan Home of Atlanta, Ga., and of the Monte- 
fiore Old People’s Home of Cleveland, Ohio. For eighteen 
years he was an officer of the United Hebrew Charities. He 
was elected its president twice and four times a trustee. Hart 
was a member and a director of the Sinai Congregation and 
also a member of the Standard Club. 

Nathan Eisendrath was one of the Jewish pioneers of 
Chicago, and has for many years occupied a prominent position 
in the business world. He was also a pioneer of the Eisendrath 
family in the United States, quite a number of whom are well 
known residents of Chicago. Eisendrath was born in Dorsten, 
Westphalia, in the year 1823 and came to America in 1848. 
He first tried his luck in the east for a few years, but he soon 
turned his face to Chicago, the promising young city of the 
west, and here made his permanent home. He helped to estab¬ 
lish the North Side Hebrew Congregation, in which he held 


— 59 — 


the office of president for several years. He served the United 
Hebrew Charities as officer for six years and for one year, 
1874 to 1875, he was president of this association. He was a 
member of Congregation Anshe Maariv and for a number of 
years he was one of its directors. Pie died in 1902 at the age 
of seventy-nine years. 

Gerhard Foreman was born in Dermstein, Rheinpfalz, Ger¬ 
many, April 29, 1823. He went to school at Gruenstadt, Ger¬ 
many. In 1848 he came to America and embarked in the 
wholesale clothing business at Delphi, Indiana, which business 
was later removed to Chicago. In 1857 he entered the banking 
business in Chicago and continued in it until 1885, when he re¬ 
tired. He founded the large and popular banking institution 
now existing in Chicago under the name of Foreman Brothers 
Banking Company and owned by his two sons Edwin G. and 
Oscar G. Foreman. Gerhard Foreman was educated as a 
teacher and his education was of great help to him in his busi¬ 
ness career. He died August 13, 1897 leaving an honored 
name and a highly respected family behind him. 

Morris Einstein was born in Germany in 1826 and came to 
America in 1843. For some years he lived in Joliet, Ill., where 
he conducted a mercantile establishment; he then settled in 
Chicago where he was very successful. He is a member of 
Sinai Congregation and an ex-director of the same, also a 
member of the Standard Club. For fourteen years he has 
been a trustee of Michael Reese Hospital. He is now in his 
88th year and has long ago retired from active business. 

Among the names of the members of the legal fraternity 
who have contributed much to the elevation of the Chicago 
bar by their legal learning, their sterling character, their pub¬ 
lic spirit and exemplary life, the name of Adolph Moses will 
always shine in splendor. He was a man of impressive manners 
who gained the highest respect of all those who came in con¬ 
tact with him and in a number of Chicago circles he is still 
remembered with love and admiration. 

Adolph Moses was born in the ancient Bavarian city of 
Speyer on February 27, 1837. He attended the public and pri¬ 
vate schools of his native town. In 1852 he came to America 


— 60 — 


and settled in Louisiana. He studied law at the University of 
Louisiana and was admitted to the bar of that state in 1861. 
At the outbreak of the civil war he enlisted in the Southern 
army and served as officer in the 21st Louisiana Regiment. 
After the war he moved to Ouincy, Ill., where he resided for 
six years. He came to Chicago in 1869 and his great ability 
and legal knowledge soon placed him in the foremost rank of 
his profession. Moses was a member of the Sinai Congrega- 
tion and of the Standard, Lakeside and Iroquois clubs. He 
was president of the Lakeside Club and of District Grand 
Lodge No. 6 of the Independent Order B’nai B’rith, of which 
order he was a very active and an influential member. For 
several years he served as Grand Secretary of the District 
Grand Lodge, was a trustee of the Cleveland Jewish Orphan 
Asylum and president of the Covenant Culture Club, which 
the Order had organized in Chicago. For six years he was a 
director of the Chicago Public Library. He was vice-president 
of the Illinois State Bar Association, a member of the execu¬ 
tive committee of the Civic Federation and director of the 
Chicago Commercial Association. In 1891 he established the 
National Corporation Reporter of which he was the editor. 
He was the author of a number of pamphlets on law and other 
subjects and delivered many lectures before large and ap¬ 
preciative audiences, notable among these lectures are those 
on the legal phase of the ‘‘Captain Dreyfus Case,” on “Haym 
Solomon, a neglected Hero of the American Revolution,” on 
“Adolph Cremieux, the French Lawyer” and an eulogy on 
the life of the late Isidor Busch of St. Louis. Adolph Moses 
was the original organizer of the “John Marshall Day” cele¬ 
bration, February 4, 1901, which was a notable celebration in 
all parts of the United States. Two of his sons were associated 
with him in his law office and when he died he left his law 
office to his three sons, Joseph W., Julius A. and Hamilton 
and to his son-in-law, Moritz Rosenthal. The latter has lately 
removed to New York city. 

Julius Rosenthal was born September 17, 1828, in Lindol- 
sheim, Grand Duchy of Baden. He attended the village school 
until he was 12 years of age and then he was placed in the 
— 61 — 


Lyceum at Rastatt, graduating after nine years of study. He 
then entered the University of Freiburg, where he remained 
six months, completing the regular course of jurisprudence. 

When he concluded his studies he determined to come to 
the United States. Accordingly, in April, 1854, he landed in 
Portland, Maine, and proceeded at once to New York city, 
where he engaged in the business of peddling Yankee notions, 
traveling chiefly in New York and Connecticut. Pie had been 
in the country but a few months when he met Mr. R. K. Swift, 
a well known and prominent banker from Chicago. Mr. Swift 
took a kindly interest in him and offered him a situation on 
condition of his going to Chicago. Rosenthal gladly accepted 
the offer, but being destitute of money, besides being some¬ 
what in debt, he had no means of paying the expenses of the 
journey. Mr. Swift here showed his confidence in the young 
man by advancing the necessary amount, and leaving him to 
follow on to Chicago as soon as he had settled his affairs. 

At the expiration of a week Rosenthal reached his future 
home and after some weeks was installed in the bank where 
he served his employer faithfully in different departments until 
early in 1858, a month after Mr. Swift’s failure. Upon leaving 
the employ of Mr. Swift, Rosenthal established an office in 
the Metropolitan Block, on La Salle street, as conveyancer, 
having acquired a thorough knowledge of the business during 
his service in the loan and trust department of the bank. 

On the 20th of December, 1859, Governor W. H. Bissell 
appointed him Public Administrator of Cook County, a posi¬ 
tion which he held for nearly twenty years with great credit 
to himself and satisfaction to the public. 

In the early part of 1860, Rosenthal was admitted to the 
bar. Plis first partnership was with Lorenz Brentano, the 
father of the present Judge Theodore Brentano, a German- 
American of a very high education, who subsequently became 
American Consul at Dresden. This connection continued for 
one year, when he formed a partnership with Hon. E. W. 
McComas, Ex-Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, which lasted 
for two years. This was succeeded by a new partnership 
with William A. Hopkins, Esq., which continued until the 


— 62 — 


early part of 1866. On October 9, of the same year he formed 
a co-partnership with A. W. Pence, which lasted for a number 
of years. 

The exceptional ability and the strict integrity of Julius 
Rosenthal gained him the full confidence of the public and he 
was chosen to fill various responsible positions. Among those 
of a benevolent character may be mentioned: The German Re¬ 
lief Society, of which he was a director at the time of the fire, 
the United Hebrew Relief Association and Aid Society. His 
services in all these boards were very valuable. Rosenthal 
also filled positions of trust in other directions. In 1867, he 
was elected to fill the position of librarian in the Chicago Law 
Institute, which he occupied with great credit for about ten 
years. In April, 1872, he was appointed by Mayor Medill as 
a member of the Board of Directors of the Public Library, 
and was reappointed by Mayor Colvin in July, 1874, for a term 
of three years, but owing to a pressure of duties, Rosenthal 
resigned in 1875. He was the first secretary of the first Free- 
mont Club in Chicago. He was a prolific writer and an earnest 
critic and his contributions to various publications attracted 
attention. He was well versed in the German and English 
literatures, and a profound law student. He stood very high 
in probate practice. He was secretary of the State Examining 
Board for admission to the bar. He was an active and influen¬ 
tial member of Sinai Congregation and enjoyed special respect 
in the best German-American circles. He was killed in an ac¬ 
cident, being run over by a taxicab while on his way home 
from his office. He was succeeded in his law practice by his 
son, Lessing, who has also gained a high standing as a lawyer 
and a public spirited citizen. 

Philip Stein was born in Rhenish Prussia, March 13, 1844. 
At the age of ten years he came to America and settled on a 
farm in Wisconsin. From 1861 to 1865 he was a student at 
the Wisconsin State University. He then went to Europe and 
spent two years at the Universities of Heidelberg, Bonn and 
Berlin. He was admitted to the bar in Milwaukee, Wis., in 
1868 and then moved to Chicago. In 1870-71 he was as¬ 
sociated with Adolph Moses under the firm name of Moses 


— 63 — 


& Stein, and in 1887 he became a member of the law firm of 
Kraus, Meyer & Stein. While a member of this promi¬ 
nent law firm he was elected to the bench of the Circuit Court 
of Cook County in which office he served two terms with honor 
and credit. Mr. Stein was the first Jew to be elected as judge 
in the State of Illinois. He is considered one of the legal 
lights of the Chicago bar and occupies a highly respected 
position in his profession. He is now connected with his 
brother-in-law, Sidney Stein, in the law practice. 

Stein was one of the founders of the Standard Club and 
was its secretary for many years. He helped to organize the 
West Chicago Club and was its president for eight years in 
succession. He is a member of Isaiah Congregation and one 
of its directors. In 1885 he served as chairman of the general 
convention of the Independent Order B’nai B’rith and in 1886, 
in a similar capacity at the general convention of the Order 
of Free Sons of Israel. He is now a member of the Executive 
Committee of the Order of B’nai B’rith. For a number of 
years he was secretary of the United Hebrew Relief Associa¬ 
tion and rendered valuable aid to its development. 

Leopold Mayer was born in Abenheim, a village in the 
Grand Duchy of Hesse, on March 3, 1827. He was educated 
in the Teachers’ Seminary at Bernsheim and for four years 
he taught in his native country. He arrived in Chicago in 
1850 and here his first work was as a teacher of German and 
Hebrew in private families. In 1853 the Garden City Institute 
was opened and Leopold Mayer was taken into the faculty as 
teacher of these languages. In the Jewish community he at 
once became a power and he used his influence to bring about 
more enlightened and progressive conditions. To him must 
be awarded the credit of having paved the way for reform 
Judaism in Chicago and the State of Illinois. His sincere and 
energetic agitation in the interest of reform made it possible 
for later friends of the cause to establish the “Reform Verein,” 
in which Mayer was one of the moving spirits, and which 
culminated in the organization of the Sinai Congregation, the 
strong citadel of reform Judaism in America today. Through 
his influence Congregation Anshe Maariv adopted a German 


— 64 — 


prayer book, engaged a trained rabbi, who delivered sermons 
in the German language and introduced the confirmation cere¬ 
mony. 

Mayer subsequently gave up his profession of teacher and 
embarked in the real estate business in which he was very 
successful. Later he entered the banking business and for 
years his popular bank was located on the northeast corner of 
Randolph and La Salle streets where he was assisted by his 
son Nathan. 

Mayer was a man of excellent character. He took interest 
in the work of charity and wielded a powerful influence for 
good in Chicago. As a member of Sinai Congregation he 
helped to lead it into the light and his words in the interest 
of religious progress always found a ready response in the 
midst of the congregation. 

Sinai Congregation was established in 1861. B. Schoene- 
man was the first president and Dr. B. Felsenthal the first 
rabbi. The latter was a prominent figure in the Jewish re¬ 
form movement in Chicago, which was started in 1858 by the 
formation of the “Reform-Verein,” of which Leopold Mayer, 
was the chairman and Bernhard Felsenthal the secretary. 

Bernhard Felsenthal was born at Muenchweiler, near 
Kaiserslautern, in the Rhenish Palatinate, and came to Chi¬ 
cago in 1858. He too was educated as teacher in Germany. 
In Chicago he first found employment as a clerk in a banking 
house. He was a scholar and a thinker; Talmudic litera¬ 
ture was very attractive to him. While secretary of the Re¬ 
form-Verein he published a pamphlet in German under the 
name of “Kol Kore Bamidbar” (A Voice calleth in the Desert) 
which created a profound impression. The work of the Re¬ 
form-Verein culminated in the founding of Sinai Congrega¬ 
tion and Felsenthal was chosen as the first spiritual leader of 
that congregation. After serving in the Sinai pulpit for three 
years he retired, and in 1864 he became the minister of Zion 
Congregation where he remained for twenty-two years. In 
1886 he was pensioned by Zion Congregation. In 1866 he was 
honored by the old Chicago University with a diploma of 
— 65 — 


Doctor of Philosophy. Dr. Felsenthal died in Chicago on 
January 12, 1908. 

Among the first members of Sinai Congregation were 
Henry Leopold, E. Frankenthal, J. Friedman, M. Selz, Charles 
Schwab, Abraham Hart, J. L. Gatzert, G. Snydacker, Herman 
Lehman, Isaac Wolfner, Aaron Cahn, Nelson Morris, Moses 
Reinemann, A. Rubel, J. M. Stine, Jacob Baiersdorf, S. 
Hyman, Henry Berg, Joseph Liebenstein, Leopold Mayer, 
Elias and Henry Greenebaum, Raphael Guthmann, Samuel 
Florsheim. Later Sinai Congregation was joined by Berthold 
Loewenthal, Julius Rosenthal, Adolph Loeb, Albert Fishell, 
the Mandel Brothers, Richard Mergentheim, Leo Fox, Harry 
Hart, Augustus Binswanger and others too numerous to men¬ 
tion. 

In July 1880, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, the present incumbent, 
was elected minister of Sinai Congregation, at first for a term 
of ten years, and finally for life. 

Dr. Emil Gustav Hirsch was born in the Grand Duchy of 
Luxemburg, May 22, 1852 and came with his parents to 
Philadelphia in 1866. He graduated from the University of 
Pennsylvania in 1872. In that year he went to Germany and 
studied at the universities of Berlin and Leipsic where he re¬ 
ceived the degree of Ph. D. He also attended the Hochschule 
fiir die Wissenschaft des Judenthums at Berlin. On his re¬ 
turn to America he was elected rabbi of the Har Sinai con¬ 
gregation at Baltimore, Md., in 1877. A year later he accepted 
the rabbinate of the Adas Israel congregation of Louisville, 
Ky., where he remained two years, when he accepted the call 
to Chicago. From 1880 to 1883, Dr. Hirsch edited with Rabbi 
I. S. Moses the “Zeitgeist,” a weekly paper published at Mil¬ 
waukee, Wis.; in 1886, he became co-editor of “The Re¬ 
former,” issued in New York; and in 1892 he connected him¬ 
self with “The Reform Advocate,” published in Chicago. In 
1888, he was appointed member, and later president of the 
Board of Chicago Public Library, remaining in office until 
1897; it was during his term that the new library building was 
erected. Since 1892 he has occupied the chair of rabbinical 
literature and philosophy in the University of Chicago. In 
— 66 — 


1896 he was presidential elector at large for Illinois. Dr. 
Hirsch is an exponent of radical reform tendencies in Judaism. 
He is an eloquent public speaker and a prolific writer. He 
conducts Sunday services in the Sinai Temple and his lectures 
have made him famous. He built up Sinai Congregation so 
that it is now the greatest and the richest Jewish congregation 
in the west. In 1893 the members of Sinai Congregation 
raised $5,000.00 for the equipment of the Semitic Department 
of the Chicago University. 

The magnificent new Sinai Temple on Grand Boulevard 
and Forty-sixth street, was dedicated March 1st, 1912. A 
Social Center building is connected with the Temple. 

The Standard Club is the first and most prominent Jewish 
club of Chicago. It was organized, April 4, 1869. The incor¬ 
porators were Jacob Newman, Louis B. Kuppenheimer, Abra¬ 
ham G. Becker, Joseph Gerstley, Alfred M. Snydacker, Bern- 
hard Mergentheim, Morris Selz, Emanuel Frankenthal, Moses 
Bensinger, Charles M. Leopold and Leopold Bloom. 

The Zion Literary Society was one of the most important 
and most influential associations of its kind in Jewish circles 
of Chicago. It was formed in 1877 bv Michael Greenebaum 
and others, in connection with the Zion congregation. For 
nearly thirteen years it was the great literary and social fea¬ 
ture in the Chicago Jewish community. Among the leading 
members were men and women like Levy Mayer, H. L. Frank, 
A. G. Becker, Mrs. Hannah Solomon and Mrs. Charles Haas 
and men like Salter, Liebman Adler, Bernhard Felsenthal and 
Emil G. Hirsch delivered many lectures before this society. 

As the city of Chicago grew rapidly in population and de¬ 
veloped its resources the Jewish community kept pace and in¬ 
creased from year to year. Many public spirited men among 
the German Jews were recognized by their fellow citizens and 
were elected to offices of honor and trust in the city, county 
and state. Philip Stein served for two terms on the bench 
of the Superior Court of Cook County. Joseph Pollack and 
Edward S. Salomon were Clerks of Cook County. Pollack 
was afterwards Justice of the Peace. Quite a number of Ger¬ 
man Jews served with credit in the City Council. Herman 

— 67 — 


Felsenthal, Frankenthal and Edward Rose were members of 
the Board of Education. 

The Chicago Times-Herald stated the following in 1895: 
“Politically speaking the election of Lincoln could not have 
been accomplished without the German vote and the Jews of 
Chicago were Germans to the core.” 

Among the members of the German Turn-Verein of Chi¬ 
cago were the following Jews: Louis Darmstaedter, Obern- 
dorfer, Mannheimer, Hartman, Max Stern, A. Stiefel, H. 
Weissenbach, L. Friend and others. 

During the Civil War many German-American Jews en¬ 
listed in the Federal army and gladly gave their lives for their 
adopted country. Some gained promotion to the rank of of¬ 
ficer by their bravery on the battlefield and reflected honor 
upon the state of Illinois. I will mention only a few here, such 
as General E. S. Salomon, Captain Mayer Frank, First Lieu¬ 
tenant Frederick B. Hart, Lieutenant Adolph Rosenthal, Cap¬ 
tain Alexander M. Daniels and Captain Frederick E. Koehler. 
General Edward Salomon, born at Schleswig, Schleswig- 
Holstein, 1836; enlisted in Chicago and joined the Twenty- 
fourth Illinois Infantry as second lieutenant. He distinguished 
himself in the battles of Frederickton and Mainfordsvile, Ken¬ 
tucky, and was promoted step by step to the rank of major 
(1862). He organized the Eighty-second Illinois Infantry, in 
which regiment he became lieutenant colonel, and then ad¬ 
vanced to colonel. Under General Howe Solomon took part 
in the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, 
Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. In 1865 he was 
breveted brigadier general. In 1870 President Grant ap¬ 
pointed him governor of Washington territory, from which 
position he resigned in 1874, removing to San Francisco, where 
he died in 1909. 

The German Jews of Illinois have been and still are well 
represented in the professions. The names of German-Am- 
erican Jewish lawyers, physicians, architects, engineers, phar¬ 
macists, professors, teachers, dentists, and journalists will add 
up into many hundreds and many of them stand very high in 
their respective lines. A few names will suffice. Lawyers: 

— 68 — 


Julius Rosenthal, Adolph Moses, Samuel Alschuler, Levy 
Maye and Simeon Straus. Physicians: M. Manheimer, Henry 
Gradle, Isaac Arthur Abt, Emanuel Friend, Daniel N. Eisen- 
drath and L. Frankenthal. Architects: Dankmar Adler, 
Simeon Eisendrath, H. L. Ottenheimer and Alfred S. 
Alschuler. 

Rut it is mainly in the commercial life of the state of Illi¬ 
nois where the German Jews gained the greatest prominence. 
In Chicago, Peoria, Quincy, Bloomington and other cities of 
the state their business acumen and financial ability accom¬ 
plished wonders in creating financial institutions and com¬ 
mercial and manufacturing establishments, of great magni¬ 
tude. giving employment to many thousands of clerks, sales¬ 
men, saleswomen, accountants, mechanics and laborers. In 
Chicago we find the Greenebaum banks, the Herman Felsenthal 
bank and the thriving banks of Foreman Brothers and 
Greenebaum Sons; the great department stores of Schlesinger 
& Mayer, which is now owned by Carson Pierie, Scott & Co., 
Siegel & Cooper Co., Mandel Brothers. In 1891, the value of 
men’s and boys’ clothing sold in Chicago had reached $23,600,- 
000.00, in 1892, it exceeded $25,000,000.00 and now it is more 
than double this amount. The German Jews led and still lead 
in the manufacture of this article, as well as in many other 
branches. The following names of firms and individuals will 
sound familiar and command respect: Kohn Brothers, Cahn, 
Wampold & Co., M. Born & Co., Strauss, Eisendrath & Co., 
Hart, Schaffner & Marx, B. Kuppenheimer, Alfred Decker & 
Cohn, Edeibeimer, Stein & Co., Selz, Schwab & Co., Rosen- 
wald, the president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., W. N. Eisendrath 
& Co., P. D. Eisendrath & Co., Morris & Co., Schwartzschild 
& Sulzberger, Kuh, Nathan & Fischer, Hyman & Co., Ullman- 
Schwabacher in Peoria, the Lessems in Quincy and the Living- 
stones in Bloomington. These names represent an aggregate 
capital of many millions of dollars, they command the high¬ 
est confidence in the business world. Well to do German Jews 
live also in Springfield, Aurora, Moline, Pontiac, Joliet, Jack¬ 
sonville, Champaign, Urbana and Cairo. 

The most influential leaders of American Jewry today are 
— 69 — 


three German-American Jews, Simon Wolf of Washington, 
D. C., Oscar S. Straus and Jacob H. Schiff of New York. I 
will close this article with short biographical sketches of these 
useful American citizens and honored Jewish leaders. 

Simon Wolf 36 was born at Hinzweiler, Bavaria, on October 
28, 1836. The decade that succeeded was a stormy one in the 
history of the German people hence in 1848 he came to Am¬ 
erica where several uncles of his had already settled. He en¬ 
tered his uncle’s business in Ulrichsville, Ohio. A permanent 
commercial career held no attractions for him and he decided 
to study law. In 1857, he married Caroline Hahn and two 
years later he gave up business and began to acquire a know¬ 
ledge of law at the Ohio Law College, Cleveland, O., gradu¬ 
ating in 1861. He was admitted to the bar at Mount Vernon, 
O., the same year. Lor a twelve months he practiced law at 
New Philadelphia, in the same state, and then settled in Wash¬ 
ington, D. C. 

From the very moment Simon Wolf entered the Capital he 
threw himself into active life, participating in every movement. 
His energy, his clear mind and manifest loyalty drew to him 
the attention of public men and from 1869 until 1878, he was 
Recorder of the District of Columbia. His record was so 
excellent that President Hayes appointed him one of the Civil 
Judges at Washington. He resigned in 1881 to assume the 
United States Consul Generalship to Egypt, from which 
he retired in the following year, owing to sickness. Upon his 
return he was appointed a member of the Board of, Charities 
of the District of Columbia. He practiced law at the same time 
having entered into partnership with Mr. Meyer Cohen, who 
subsequently became his son-in-law. 

It is difficult to do full justice to the Jewish activities of 
Simon Wolf in this limited space. Every Jewish interest he 
has made his own. For thirty years he has been chairman 
of the Board of Delegates of Civil and Religious Rights of 
the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which, together 
with the late Dr. Isaac M. Wise, he called into being. His 
connection with the Independent Order B’nai B’rith dates 

8 ®See Jewish Immigration Bulletin, March, 1913. 

— 70 — 


back to 1865. He was its president from 1904 to 1905. For 
many years he has been a member of the Executive Committee 
of the Order. It was he who moved the United States Govern¬ 
ment to protest against the Roumanian outrages, and it was 
due to him that the conferences between the late Leo N. Levi, 
then president of the Order B’nai B’ rith, President Roosevelt 
and the late John Hay, then Secretary of State, were arranged. 
As president of his B’nai B’rith District, he inaugurated the 
Montefiore Home for Aged, in Cleveland, O., and he was 
founder and president of the Hebrew Orphans’ Home at At¬ 
lanta, Ga. vSingle handed he raised $150,000 for the home and 
moreover devoted the proceeds of his book “The American 
Jew as a Patriot, Soldier and Citizen” to the home. He was 
president of the Board of Children’s Guardians at Washing¬ 
ton, and is now president of the Ruppert Home for Aged and 
Indigent and the German Orphan Asylum. He is an honorary 
member of the Saengerbund, the Shamrock Club and the 
Masonic veterans. For twelve years he was chairman of the 
executive committee of the Order Kesher Shel Barzel. He was 
instrumental in raising $10,000 for the Garfield Hospital and 
obtaining an additional $5,000 from the late Baroness de 
Hirsch. 

In the ranks of Freemasonry Simon Wolf has also won 
laurels and he is recognized as a great lecturer and orator, 
having lectured in the aid of many causes, irrespective of 
creed, in every city of the country. 

The life of Simon Wolf is the history of American Jewry. 
He is the very type of the German-American Jew. He has 
given the best that is in him to humanity; he has lived for his 
adopted country and for his people. He has now passed the 
seventieth milestone, and has the satisfaction of knowing 
that his life, full of noble achievements, is a blessing. 

Oscar S. Straus was born December 23, 1850 at Ottenberg, 
Rhenish, Bavaria. He came to America with his parents who 
settled in Talbotton, Ga., in 1854 and removed with them to 
Columbus, Ga., in 1863, and to New York in 1865. He was 
educated at Columbia Grammar School and Columbia College, 
graduating in 1871. Afterwards he attended the Columbia 
— 71 — 


Law School, graduating from that institution in 1873. He 
began the practice of law in the firm of Hudson & Straus which 
afterward became Sterne, Straus & Thompson. The strain 
of a large practice in commercial and railway cases told upon 
his health and in January, 1881, he retired from law and en¬ 
tered his father’s firm. Straus was active in the campaign 
which resulted in the election of President Cleveland in 1884, 
and was appointed minister plenipotentiary to Turkey in 1887 
at the suggestion of Henry Ward Beecher. Straus did excel¬ 
lent work while at Constantinople, especially in obtaining recog¬ 
nition of the American schools and colleges in the Turkish 
dominion. He was again appointed minister plenipotentiary 
to Turkey (1897-1900) by President McKinley, and was en¬ 
abled by his influence with the Sultan to help reconcile the 
Mohammedan inhabitants of the Sulu Archipelagos in the 
Philippines to the recognition of the suzerainity of the United 
States. 

Straus has performed much valuable public service as mem¬ 
ber of the commissions to investigate the New York public 
schools and to improve institutions for the insane. He was 
president of the National Primary League in 1895, and of the 
American Social Science Association from 1899 to 1903, as 
well as of the National Conference of Capital and Labor held 
in 1901. He was instrumental in founding the National Civic 
Federation, of which he has been vice-president since 1901. 
In 1902, on the death of Ex-president Harrison, Straus was 
appointed by President Roosevelt to succeed him as a member 
of the permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, and he 
was again appointed to the same post in 1908, this high 
honor being given him in recognition of his diplomatic service 
and knowledge of international relations. In 1906, President 
Roosevelt appointed Oscar S. Straus Secretary of Commerce 
and Labor, he being the first Jew to be thus honored with a 
seat in the Cabinet. President Wilson has reappointed Oscar 
S'. Straus as a member of the permanent Hague Tribunal, for 
six years. 

At a conference called by former President Roosevelt on 
May 26, 1914, it was practically decided that Oscar Straus 


— 72 — 


will be the Progressive candidate for United States senator 
from the state of New York. Straus is now at Madrid, Spain, 
where he will spend some time making researches into early 
American history. 

Straus has written much for the magazines, has delivered 
lectures at Yale and Harvard universities, and since 1903, has 
lectured annually upon international law before the United 
States Naval War College at Annapolis. He is the author of 
“The Origin of the Republican Form of Government in the 
United States” (New York, 1885), and of “Roger Williams, 
the Pioneer of Religious Liberty” (ib. 1894), “The Develop¬ 
ment of Religious Liberty in the United States” (1896), “Re¬ 
form in the Consular Service” (1897), “Our Diplomacy” 
(1902, “The Protection of Naturalized Citizens” (1900) and 
“The American Doctrine of Citizenship” (1904). He has been 
very active in connection with the study of American Jewish 
history, is always ready to serve his people and the Jews of 
America are justly proud of this wise and learned leader. 

Jacob Henry Schiff was born January 10, 1847, at Frank- 
fort-on-the-Main. He was educated in the public schools of 
Frankfort, and adopted the vocation of his father, Moses 
Schiff, one of the brokers of the Rothschilds in that city. In 
1865 he emigrated to the United States and was employed for 
a time by the firm of Frank & Gaus, brokers in New York. 
In 1867 he formed the brokerage firm of Budge, Schiff & Co., 
which was dissolved in 1873. He then went to Europe, where 
he established connections with some of the chief German 
banking houses. Returning to the United States, he became 
on January 1, 1875, a member of the banking firm of Kuhn, 
Loeb & Co., New York, of which he was soon practically the 
head. 

Owing to his connections with the German money market, 
Schiff was able to attract much German capital to American 
enterprise, more particularly in the field of railway finance. 
His firm, under his direction, became the financial recon¬ 
structors of the Union Pacific Railroad about 1897; and in 
1901 it engaged in a struggle with the Great Northern Rail¬ 
way. This resulted in a panic on the stock exchange (May 
— 73 — 


9, 1901), in which the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., held the 
situation at its mercy. Schifif’s moderation and wise action 
on this occasion prevented disaster, and caused his firm to be¬ 
come one of the leading influences in the railway financial 
world, controlling more than 22,000 miles of railways and 
$1,321,000,000 of stock. To him was due largely the estab¬ 
lishment of the regime of “community of interests” among the 
chief railway combinations to replace ruinous competition, 
which principle led also to the formation of the Northern 
Securities Company. Schifif’s firm was chosen to float the 
large stock issues not only of the Union Pacific and allied 
companies, but also of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Balti¬ 
more and Ohio, the Norfolk and Western, and the Missouri 
Pacific railway companies, the Western Union Telegraph Com¬ 
pany, and many others. It subscribed for and floated the three 
large Japanese war loans in 1904 and 1905, in recognition of 
which the Mikado conferred upon Schifif the Second Order of 
the Sacred Treasure of Japan. 

Schifif is connected with many industrial and commercial 
activities. He is a director of the Union Pacific, the Balti¬ 
more and Ohio, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railway 
companies; of the Western Union Telegraph Company; of the 
Equitable Life Assurance Society; of the National Bank of 
Commerce and the National City Bank, the Morton Trust 
Company, the Columbia Bank, the Fifth Avenue Trust Com¬ 
pany of New York; and of various other trust companies in 
New York as well as in Philadelphia. 

Schifif has especially devoted himself to philanthropic activ¬ 
ity, both general and Jewish, on the most approved modern 
methods. He is known as “the rational philanthropist.” Be¬ 
sides making benefactions in his native city he was one of the 
founders of the Montefiore Home, New York, and is one of 
the two persons connected with all the larger Jewish charities 
of that city. 

All the municipal reform movements in New York like¬ 
wise have been supported by Schifif; he served on the Com¬ 
mittee of Seventy (1898), the Committee of Fifteen (1902), 
and the Committee of Nine (1905); and he has recently 

— 74 — 


founded at Columbia University a chair in social economics. 
His interest in education and learning has found expression 
in the establishment of scholarships at Columbia for economic 
science, and in the presentation of a fund and building for 
Semitic studies at Harvard. He is chairman of the East- 
Asiatic Section of the Museum of Natural History, New York, 
which has sent out many expeditions for the study of Eastern 
conditions and history. He has made many donations to the 
Metropolitan Museum of Art in that city and to other muse¬ 
ums, as well as to the Zoological Gardens in Bronx Park, of 
which he is a trustee. He has also presented to the New York 
Public Library a large number of works dealing with Jewish 
literature, so that it now possesses the largest collection of 
modern Judaica in the New World. 37 

While history has placed the crown of martyrdom upon 
the head of the Jew it has at the same time demonstrated his 
invincible power of endurance and established the fact that in 
spite of the religious hatred and persecution of the dark ages 
and the commercial and economic anti-semitism of modern 
times, the Jews are capable of producing men of virility, of 
achievement, of force of character and strength of mind; men 
of high ideals, who march in the front ranks of civilization and 
help to lead the race to enlightment and progress. 


— 75 — 


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